


Bespoke

by the1918



Series: Compatible [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftercare, Age Difference, Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Plug, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Barebacking, Bearded Steve Rogers, Butt Plugs, Cabin Fic, Captain America Steve Rogers, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Christmas Fluff, Come Marking, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, Emotional Sex, Engineer Bucky Barnes, Epilogue-Specific Consent Warnings - See Ch. 11 A/N, Fake Science, Felching, Fluff, Freeform, Frottage, Happily Ever After, Heat-Drunk Bucky, Intergluteal Sex, Kink Exploration, Kink Negotiation, Knotting, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Modern Bucky Barnes, Nesting, Omega Bucky Barnes, Omega Verse, Overstimulation, Possessive Sex, Primal Rut Steve, Protective Steve Rogers, Rimming, Scent Marking, Semi-Public Sex, Shrunkyclunks, Size Difference, Size Kink, Smut, Soulmates, Stomach Distension (A Little), Strength Kink, Subspace, Sugar Daddy Steve, Twink Bucky Barnes, Wall Sex, kinda? Bucky is 24 Steve is 31, this club has everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 107,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21754051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the1918/pseuds/the1918
Summary: “I love you, too. So fucking much,” Steve answered. His voice sounded cracked and exhausted, an exposed nerve ending in the shape of a man. “Some days I still don’t believe you’re real. Feels— feels like somehow, I’ve always loved you. Even when I didn’t know you.”Bucky smiled softly at that and felt his heart threaten to explode. Still straddling his lap, he reached a hand up to cup Steve’s cheek.“You’ve always known me,” he stated, simply. “I was made for you, remember?”---Sequel toCompatible, a Shrunkyclunks A/B/O love story.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Compatible [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1483064
Comments: 600
Kudos: 1092





	1. Home (Part I)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to _[Compatible - A Romantic Science Fiction Thriller in Four Parts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20597390/chapters/48902774)_ , which is **mandatory** reading. Or you will have much confuse. 
> 
> I want to start by wholeheartedly thanking the team of lovelies who beta’d various parts of this story, including (in no particular order):  
> [Becassine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Becassine/works) (my lucky charm), [HaniTrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaniTrash/works), [ixalit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixalit/works), Cera ([@ceratonia-siliqua](https://ceratonia-siliqua.tumblr.com/post/635736332944211968/fic-master-list) or [Leopardtail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leopardtail/works) on Ao3), [TrekChik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrekChik/works), and [chilibabie07](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chilibabie07/works).
> 
> If you are bingeing this story in one go, I recommend opening a bottle of wine first. Pace yourself.
> 
> Enjoy <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve make a home together.

_November_

_“Hi, um— My name is Bucky? I’d like to make an appointment.”_

_“Certainly, Bucky. Is this the first time you and your partner are making an appointment with us?”_

_“Yes. First time.”_

_“Let me get you all set up first. Let’s start with your full name.”_

_“Sure. My first name is actually James, last name Barnes. My middle name is Buchanan. Like the president.”_

_“Date of birth?”_

_“March 10, 1991.”_

_“Secondary gender?”_

_“Oh— yeah. I’m uh. I’m an Omega.”_

_“Thank you, Mr. Barnes. Can you please give me your partner’s information?”_

_“Yeah, um. His name is Steve. He’s an Alpha.”_

_“Full name and date of birth?”_

_“Actually... is it okay if I don’t give that information? My partner’s kind of a public figure, and we just don’t want—”_

_“That’s perfectly fine, Mr. Barnes. We can stick with just ’Steve’. When you would like to come in?”_

_“The sooner, the better, I guess. Are you closed next week?”_

_“Only on Thursday for Thanksgiving, and the next day. We have an open appointment for two hours on Tuesday starting at 2:00 PM. Will that work?”_

_“Yeah, that’s… Hold on, let me check with my partner. Hey, Steve?”_

\----

The thing about being a real, breathing person and experiencing something that was nothing short of a cosmically-driven trauma alongside another real, breathing person (well, _super_ person) is that— for good or for bad, enormous or small— the life lived together _changes_.

They left the hospital on a Sunday in early October. Steve moved into Bucky’s apartment on Monday.

Objectively, the decision was almost certainly too much, too fast. Bucky was cognizant of that, and he knew Steve knew it just as well. Though they had already exchanged love declarations, they had still technically only been together for two months.

But none of that actually mattered to Bucky, because when Steve issued his steadfast (if not a little contrite) edict insisting that he just _needed_ to be near Bucky ( _“I need to know that you’re okay, Buck—every night when you go to bed, every morning when you wake up”_ ), Bucky immediately knew that every part of it felt right.

Fuck caution, and fuck moderation.

Because Bucky, for his part, just couldn’t pretend as though something absolutely world-bending hadn’t happened to their relationship in the wake of what he had taken to mentally calling ’The Heat Incident’. What even was _supposed_ to happen when the foremost authorities in the field of mating science tell you that the measure of Compatibility between you and your still-brand-new Alpha boyfriend was so incredibly significant that it was—well— _immeasurable_? What else was there to do than to sink right back into their still-very-young relationship like any ‘normal’ couple, to spend every day doing what they could to learn each other more deeply, more intimately?

So Steve moved in and it was, all things considered, a burst of domestic bliss.

It wasn’t as though Steve hadn’t already been at Bucky’s apartment nearly every moment that he wasn’t off with the Avengers, since at least their fourth date. But now, Steve had gone from having a toothbrush and a few spare sweatpants at Bucky’s apartment to completely and wholly sharing a _home_ with Bucky. Now— _now_ , Bucky suddenly got to experience all of the little things that came with really living with a partner, intimacy and closeness on a wonderful new level. And Bucky was in love with each and every one of those little things— the littler, the better, even.

Like that one night, their first full week living together: they stood— in _their_ bedroom— and Bucky tied Steve’s necktie for him about an hour before he had to head off to a press event. Bucky tied Steve’s necktie not because Steve couldn’t do it himself, but because Bucky just _wanted_ , and because he could. And then he watched that beefy, blond adonis of a man slick back his hair before traipsing out onto the street looking _murderously_ fuckable, and Bucky could stay back knowing that—at the end of that night? Steve Rogers was coming home to _him_.

There was the Thursday night of their second week together, when Bucky was up on his tip-toes in the kitchen and reaching with the full extent of his arms to grab a bowl from the top shelf, and Steve walked in. He saw Bucky’s struggle but didn’t grab the bowl _for_ him, like Bucky had assumed he would; instead, Steve wordlessly wrapped his broad, enormous hands around Bucky’s hips and _lifted_ him those last few inches—with about as much effort as it took Bucky to lift a sheet of paper—and allowed Bucky to grab the item himself. Then Steve set him down, gentle and effortless, pecking him on the cheek before filling up his glass of water and exiting back the way he came. The whole silent interaction left Bucky standing in the kitchen out of breath, rocking a bizarre semi and whispering an involuntary ‘ _fuck_ ’ to himself, wondering how the hell he had missed just _how_ intense his own kink for Steve’s strength actually was.

Then there was Monday night, three weeks to the date after Steve moved in, when Becca came over to their apartment for dinner and the two most important people in Bucky’s life finally met each other. After everyone polished off their _chiles rellenos_ (which Bucky fucking nailed, _hell_ yes), he fondly watched Steve and Becca tag-team the dishes while he sat— at their insistence (' _You cooked, Buck, we clean')—_ at the kitchen table with his glass of Malbec. His veteran sister and his sexy Army boyfriend had clicked frighteningly fast, deep into swapping their own respective battlefield stories even before the salad was finished. Steve was outward with his morbid fascination in all the ways that modern warfare had changed for the average soldier since America had fought the Nazis, since trench warfare became extinct and man could suddenly drop bombs from completely unmanned aerial vehicles. Bucky found himself doing very little talking that night, and he was perfectly content with that, even when Becca began to drop slightly embarrassing anecdotes about their childhood. Instead of interrupting her stories, instead of stopping Steve from laughing, he looked on with a smile and thought of all the Christmases and other holidays to come when the room would again be full of the same warm, genuine laughter.

There were the little physical reminders of their shared life, all around them in their home. In the bathroom, Steve’s bath robe hung next to Bucky’s. In the kitchen, Steve’s seemingly endless number of protein supplement products littered the pantry shelves. His laundry was constantly all mixed up with Bucky’s laundry. And Bucky was sure that nothing— _nothing_ —would ever warm his entire body quite like seeing Steve’s vibranium shield resting against the beautiful old antique credenza that Bucky’s grandmother had gifted him four years ago, when he had first gotten a job at Stark Industries and moved into his own apartment.

Bucky couldn’t deny it: Steve was his home now. And the emotion behind that thought made his heart feel downright swollen.

As it happened, Bucky and Steve shared more than a home address; they also shared a _work_ address. When their schedules matched up (i.e., when Steve was not called off to an undisclosed corner of the world to battle baddies), they were soon making the commute from Brooklyn to Avengers Tower together. On Steve’s _motorcycle_.

Before the Heat Incident and the subsequent cohabitation, Steve had assumed—correctly—that Bucky was a little frightened at the prospect of riding on the back of Steve’s bike. It wasn’t that Bucky didn’t _want_ to ride it; in fact, the prospect of being so plastered against Steve’s ridiculously muscled, leather-clad(!) back while they whipped through the city gave him more than just a little bit of a thrill. Bucky just hadn’t ever been on a motorcycle before, and for some reason the way that _power_ and _badass_ and _competence_ radiated off of the Alpha in waves every time Bucky watched him park his bike had him feeling extra nervous. But, eventually, Steve convinced Bucky to give it a try.

( _“Just keep your arms wrapped tight around me, baby. You’ll lean with me when I lean.”_

_“But what if I screw up? What if I get all stiff and I forget to lean with you and we get thrown off the bike?”_

_“You know I’ve got at least a hundred pounds on you, right?”_

_“Hard to miss that when I wake up every morning squished to the bed.”_

_“I’m just saying that no matter what you do, I’ll still be in complete control. I won’t let anything happen.”_

_“Will you still love me if I’m bad at it?”_

_“Baby, you’ll be great. I promise. And I would still love you if you were bad at literally anything.”_

_“Even if I was bad a baking? And I couldn’t make you those little cinnamon sugar cookies anymore?”_

_“Alright, anything_ except _that.”)_

And when Bucky finally crawled on the back of his boyfriend’s Street 750, it was every bit of terrifying as he’d feared it would be… for the first ten minutes. Then, just as Bucky began to feel like it wasn’t actually so hard, like he wasn’t such a bad lean-er after all, Steve took an especially tight corner that had Bucky pressing himself into that firm body _extra_ _hard_ and the scent of aroused Alpha filled Bucky’s nose and, okay, maybe motorcycles were actually very, very amazing.

So they both went to work at the Tower each morning, and soon, Bucky Barnes bizarrely found himself being introduced to the _Avengers_ during his lunch hours. Because that was Bucky’s life now.

Steve admitted to having been intentional about not having Bucky around his team those first couple months of their relationship, primarily because Tony was Bucky’s boss, and he _‘didn’t want to make things weird’_ for Bucky by creating a space for a more personal relationship. Upon hearing this logic, Bucky just smacked Steve on the arm and rattled off five different things that Bucky already knew about Tony ‘Olympic-Level Over-Sharer’ Stark that no regular employee should _ever_ have to know about their boss. ( _“Steve, you moron, Tony and I have been weird together since you were still a fucking ice cube.”_ )

So with Steve’s stupid reasons gone out the window, Bucky got to know Steve’s team mates— Steve’s _friends_. He was interested, and maybe a little surprised (‘cause yeah, probably his own internalized sexism) to learn that most of the Avengers were _not_ Alphas.

Tony was an Omega, but Bucky already knew that— largely because of the _wholly_ inappropriate ‘guy talk’ Tony had been instigating for years when they worked in the lab together. (Among the list of very, very inappropriate things that Bucky should _never_ have known about his boss was that Tony Stark had engineered his own, personal line of knotting dildos for when Pepper was gone and his heats were spent alone. And this was just information about his boss that Bucky lived with on a daily basis.)

The others, however, were definitely a bit of a surprise.

After Tony, Natasha Romanov was the only other Omega on the team. Bucky knew this information only because Steve shared it with him. As when Bucky had first met her upon waking up in his hospital room after the Heat, Natasha always smelled like a Beta— like nothing particular at all, at least to his Omega nose. At first Bucky assumed that this was because she, like many Omegas in the twenty-first century, wore scent blockers. When he said as much aloud to his boyfriend one evening at home, Steve corrected him with a somber tone; no, the Soviet establishment where Natasha had been trained had surgically removed each and every one of her scent glands. Bucky was floored by this information, but said nothing in reply. He knew that he and Steve were thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same sore pang of emotion: sympathy at the thought that Natasha was incapable of receiving an Alpha’s bite, if she ever wanted to, and could never form a true bond. But they didn’t talk about that out loud.

Clint Barton was a Beta. The incredibly fascinating Dr. Bruce Banner was also a Beta… until he got angry. The _Hulk_ was an Alpha. Thor— who was an _alien_ , Bucky was reminded—was none of the above; the only secondary genders in Asgardian biology were ‘literal god’ and ‘not literal god’. Finally, Sam Wilson was the only completely human Alpha on the Avengers.

Slowly, Bucky even got to know the _people_ behind each of the Avengers’ identities. He mostly saw them during the work day, sometimes afterwards when he and Steve would join them for a beer at the end of the day. Bucky found himself hanging out on floors of the Tower that he’d never before had access to, talking to interesting people that he’d never figured he would have the opportunity to even meet— much less _befriend_. It was strange, but it was interesting, and exciting, and there was really absolutely nothing Bucky wouldn’t do to become more and more a part of Steve’s life in the way that he suddenly was, because the universe had struck him with a lighting bolt of incredible fortune.

At the end of every day, he and Steve would return home from the Tower and make dinner together, exchanging tiny little touches in passing as they moved around each other in the home that smelled of them both.

So, yes. Domestic bliss.

And then the first of the new month rolled around, and when Bucky sat down with his tablet and debit card to do his monthly bill paying chores online, he encountered a lot of... strange things.

When he called customer service to inquire as why his electric bill had a due amount of _‘zero’_ , the kind lady on the other end of the line informed him that the account was ‘taken care for this billing cycle and a thus indeterminate number of future billing cycles’.

The internet company said something similar. As did the wireless company.

_( “What the ever-living fuck, Steven.”_

_“I—You. You’re a busy guy, Buck? Didn’t want you to have to think about the little stuff.”_

_“…And, so. So you consider pre-paying my bills—”_

_“—They’re our bills now, Buck—”_

_“—for the next four fucking years to be taking care of ’the little stuff’?”_

_“Buck, come on, I just wanted—”_

_“Please fuck the fuck off until further notice. Steven.”)_

And, _well_ , okay, what-the-fuck-ever—yeah, of _course_ Steve somehow talked him into forgiveness (while still dodging all of Bucky’s attempts at getting him to cancel the payments), because Steve Rogers was born with big, blue puppy dog eyes that were impossible to ignore, and because Steve was loving and patient and warm and the human embodiment of kindness. Eventually, somehow, Bucky even felt a little guilty for being mad at the gesture in the first place.

…But then _that_ was before Bucky contacted his building manager to ask why he could not log into his tenant account to pay rent online, and said building manager informed him that the property had recently changed ownership and that their firm no longer _managed_ said building, because said firm did not manage properties owned by _Stark Fucking Industries_.

Steve slept on the couch for the next three nights.

On the fourth night, Bucky returned from an exhausting, disappointing day at the lab ( _everything_ broke, _months_ of his hard work washed down a literal drain), the circles under his eyes never darker. And there at the stove was Steve— _Steve_ , who was supposed to have been at some pre-mission meeting all night— wearing a fucking apron in their too-small but perfect apartment and cooking Bucky dinner like— _well_ … Like a housewife from 1945.

Later, Bucky let Steve hold him in their bed and kiss him deep into his dreams.

So perhaps the domestic bliss was not _perfect_ , but it was certainly alive, and treasured, and maybe more than anything else it was _surreal_ — the act of him and Steve resuming and improving their lives together as though the pair of them— their _togetherness_ —wasn’t some incredible and beautiful chemical freak of the universe. _Out of range._

Nearly every night they spent at home together the two would lay cuddled up together on the couch, zoned out with the television, or halfway between awake and asleep on their bed. Steve had this one particular habit that Bucky didn’t think he was really self-aware of, where he would move his large body down to rest against Bucky’s side, or maybe arrange Bucky sideway across his warm lap, before tucking his face snugly into Bucky’s neck like he was just scenting him (which they did to each other, _constantly_ )— and then just stay put. For the first five or so minutes Steve would always lay content, breathing evenly and maybe humming quietly to himself; no particular tune, just a content thrumming. The warmth of breath against Bucky’s neck and the woodsy, herbal scent of happy, sleepy Steve usually had Bucky drowsy within a matter of minutes. Then, just as Bucky might begin to let his eyes slip closed, he would feel the soft, wet heat of Steve’s open lips and tongue begin to work over the soft flesh of Bucky’s scent gland.

It always started with lazy little kitten licks, Steve seeming almost absentminded in his task, before his attention grew more determined and focused but still, _always,_ slow and tender. Eventually Steve would settle into an alternating rhythm, gentle laves of his tongue over Bucky’s neck and then sweet, open mouth kisses right over the gland. Bucky found himself dazed and a little fascinated upon noticing that there was nothing sexual about Steve’s attentions, or really even sensual. It was simply a pure, unadulterated gesture of the most delicate and sincere kind of intimacy. Bucky never stopped Steve or asked him why he was doing it, because he already knew; it was about comfort for both of them. Eventually, Steve would get hazy and lose himself in it, tenderly loving on the soft skin of Bucky’s neck for sometimes half an hour before dozing off with face pressed into the warm skin of one very, very thoroughly scent-marked Omega. It was the most perfect part of Bucky’s days.

Then there was the issue of sex.

Although maybe calling it an ‘issue’ wasn’t quite fair. Bucky was getting off, Steve was getting off, they were getting off _together_ and it was really quite fantastic.

But.

They’d taken things to third base just a couple of times before the Heat took them by surprise, hadn’t had a chance to take it any further due to busy schedules and a genuine desire to take things slow and sweet. So, the first (and thus far _only_ ) time they’d actually fucked was during the Heat, and to say that they picked right back up afterwards and continued on that general trajectory would have been a gross misrepresentation.

The first week after the Heat— after Steve moved in— was undeniably a little _off_. There was a deeply unsexy and awkward conversation the day they came home from the hospital, when Bucky brought up that the inconvenient but still-present truth that they hadn’t used a condom in the Heat. He’d then been in the middle of a stumbling soap box statement— okay, _yeah he was on birth control and he knew he was clean and he was sure Steve was too but STI prevention should be an uncompromised principle, always_ — when Steve had calmly stopped him. He explained to Bucky that the super soldier serum made it impossible for him to contract or transmit any kind of infectious disease. They were protected.

So then Bucky had looked at him dumbly for exactly five seconds before tackling Steve to the ground with filthy kisses and telling him that he wanted his come in his ass every which way he could get it there. No one had never seen a man blush such a deep red as Steve Rogers in that moment.

The real thing, at first, was that neither one of them really felt up to the task— recovering from emotional whiplash as they both still were. There was an impressive amount of cuddling, and they were both constantly touching the other as though they had been positively touch-starved for years, but it never went beyond the comfort of shared touches in that first week. What they _did_ do was walk around for a good five days both consciously and subconsciously scenting _everything_ —each other and each others’ belongings— in a way that could accurately be described as obsessive.

Eventually, though, the emotional frenzy and residual exhaustion gave way to a more confident sort of comfort, returning to the slow simmer of _want_.

So, during the second week, it became boldly and wonderfully apparent to Bucky that Steve Rogers loved to give head— _loved_ it. Some days it felt like a fresh hot dick must have been his favorite goddamn dish in the whole wide world—and _fuck_ , the man dove into the task like he was specifically engineered for sucking cock instead of toppling fascism.

Every time Bucky would try to initiate sex they’d begin with the foreplay and it would suddenly be _over_ for Bucky in a matter of minutes, unable to keep it together with Steve’s lips wrapped around his dick, looking more sinful than any center fold. Of course, as an Omega, Bucky could come several more times without too much of a refractory period (a trait he soon learned that his super soldier boyfriend shared with him, despite being an Alpha), but Steve— knowing this— would keep Bucky pinned to the mattress with a hand on his hip while he brutally fingered one or two more out of him, a near manic grin on his face the whole time. After Steve was satisfied with his work and Bucky was completely exhausted, they would either rut together on the bed until Steve spilled ( _buckets_ , usually) onto Bucky’s thigh or stomach, palm pressing tight around his knot as it blew wide, or Bucky would return the favor by swallowing down as much of Steve’s monster dick as physics would allow until his jaw was aching, his chin sloppy with drool.

Which was all really, really wonderful, but after the fourth time it happened like that, Bucky suspected Steve might be distracting him with his ace hummers on purpose. He vowed to quit letting his own dick drive the ship and to stop Steve the next time before he could make Bucky’s plan veer off course again.

The night of the hot-as- _fuck_ -bowl-on-shelf incident (he just casually fucking _lifted_ Bucky like he was made of _dust?!_ ), Bucky successfully seduced Steve into their bed—if you could still call it seducing when the seduc _ee_ was enthusiastically panting like a dog that’s been promised a ride in the car. He hungrily groped at every inch of Alpha that he could reach before taking Steve’s eager hands in his own, leading them in a sensual slide down Bucky’s back, lower and lower. Once he could hear the low rumble beginning in Steve’s chest, Bucky leaned in and whispered hot, filthy against his mouth— _“You want this ass, Stevie?”—_ and he delighted in the wild groan that Steve loosed when he then stripped Bucky and all but _threw_ him on the bed, face down, ass up… before spending the next full fucking hour _eating_ Bucky’s ass like it was cotton candy at a carnival. Bucky came so many times in such quick succession that he actually became dizzy, the energy to beg Steve to fuck him evaporated right out of his body as through Steve had drank that up, too.

And then there were Steve’s work responsibilities, and, _fuck_ — _Bucky’s_ work responsibilities; life in Tony Stark’s lab had been an emotional roller coaster as of late. Life got in the way like that, a lot. Even within and without all of those obstacles, their sexual escapades continued to stop just short of what Bucky was quickly growing very, very antsy to obtain: to finally get Steve inside him for the first time _without_ the biological imperative of a Heat hanging over their heads.

It began to claw at Bucky, the fact that Steve _knew_ what it felt like inside of Bucky’s body but did not actively seek to revisit the feeling. Steve had been more than just a little enthusiastic in the activities that they _did_ partake in, so Bucky was spared the potential low self-esteem from thinking that his boyfriend didn’t want him. Nonetheless, Bucky found himself trying to list possible reasons why Steve was avoiding fully being with him, the way their bodies were designed by nature to fit together.

One thing that Bucky did _not_ think was the problem— surprisingly— was the issue of Steve’s residual guilt over what had transpired while he was in rut. The reason for Bucky’s surety on the matter was a conversation they’d shared a day after leaving the hospital, when Steve had— shockingly— actually _agreed_ without putting up a fight to cut out all further bullshit when it came to blaming himself for their shared fright during the Heat. Bucky had honestly expected more resistance, but then Steve had just listened and nodded his head tersely— _“The only thing I want in life now is to take care of you, Buck. To make sure that you have everything you want, that you’re happy. And I know that me blaming myself hurts you, too. So I, just. I won’t do that. Okay?”_

(And, some days, when Bucky found himself thinking about the promise he’d broken to protect himself from Steve during the Heat, to use the tase device when faced with fear… well. Bucky had to remind himself that their pact to let go of the guilt was a two-way street.)

Life together wasn’t perfect; they both fucked up from time to time. But when there was a problem, they talked about it, and they were open and honest and they communicated with each other like their life together was more important than either of them alone— because, for them, it _was_.

And at the end of every day, Steve always looked at Bucky like if the world burned down then everything might still be okay, so long as Bucky would let Steve be there to shield him from the flames.

\---

The fluorescent lighting in Dr. Pete’s exam room was probably bothering Bucky more than it should have.

He’d been feeling a certain baseline level of tense all day— several days, actually. Steve’s mission had him on a full communication blackout, which meant that Bucky hadn’t so much as received a text message from him in four days. While it wasn’t the first time he’d had to deal with that particular aspect of loving a superhero, it didn’t get easier.

“Well, the hormone levels in your blood work look normal,” Dr. Pete said, flipping through the ream of paper in his heavy clipboard. “I see nothing to indicate that you should expect a Heat in the next month.”

It was news that Bucky expected to hear, but it came as a relief nonetheless. After the Heat Incident, Dr. Pete had asked Bucky to come in once a month to track his hormone levels. He couldn’t be on suppressants anymore; even if he had really wanted to be (and he wasn’t sure he did, not now that he had Steve), the fact was that there was no possible dosage he could be on that would be both effective in preventing a Heat around such a strongly Compatible Alpha and also be safe for his health.

“You still thinking it will come in five months?”

Dr. Pete nodded. “Thereabouts. Still want to keep checking you monthly.”

“Right. Uncharted territory and whatnot.”

“That’s right.” Dr. Pete set down his clipboard and took a seat on his sliding stool. His posture changed, shifting from own his signature brand of ‘casual-professional’ to something a tick more relaxed. “How are you and Steve doing? You said you moved in together.”

“Yeah,” Bucky answered. “Pretty much a month ago now. It’s been…” And despite his tense mood, he couldn’t stop the little smile that spread on his face as he thought of the incredible life that had sprouted up around him and his live-in, super solider boyfriend. “Amazing. Steve is amazing.”

“That’s great to hear,” Dr. Pete replied with a warm, genuine smile. “Really. I see a bright future for the two of you. You’re both very special, individually and together. And I don’t just say that because of the extreme Compatibility.”

Bucky blushed and thanked him for the kind compliment, before the next thing out of the doctor’s mouth threw him for a loop.

“How have things been between you—sexually?” he asked. “Since the Heat, I mean.”

While the sudden question didn’t make him blush— Bucky had always felt comfortable talking about his sex life with Dr. Pete— he really wasn’t quite sure how to answer. After a few long moments of Bucky trying to organize his thoughts, the doctor had clearly begun to read his silence.

“Let me start with a more direct question: have you and Steve _had_ sex since your Heat?”

“Yes… and no.” Bucky gave a small shrug. “Hands and mouths? Pretty frequently, but yeah, um.”

“No intercourse,” Dr. Pete finished for him.

“I _want_ to,” Bucky said, tossing his head back with a groan, “and I think Steve does to. It just hasn’t happened. Not _intentionally._ Not on my part, at least. I can’t tell what Steve is thinking.” He stopped, shrugging. “I guess I haven’t really tried to talk to him about it yet.”

Dr. Pete gave him a sympathetic smile. “I understand. What you and Steve went through with the Heat was an intense, unique experience. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that there might be some residual psychological effects, for one or both of you. In fact, if I'm being honest, I expected that you might say something like this today.”

The doctor paused and reached into his pocket, extracting a small card of off-white paper.

“I happen to have a colleague who specializes in working with couples like you. Well,” he smiled wryly, “not quite like you. I suppose there may not be another couple out there like you and Steve. But if there’s someone who can help you two, it’ll be her.”

Bucky took the card and read the embossed black lettering.

**_Anna Welsh, PhD, LMFT_ **

_Intimacy Counselor_

_Brooklyn Institute of Mating Psychology and Behavioral Medicine_

“A sex therapist?” Bucky said incredulously. “You think we need to see a _sex therapist_? Isn’t that for, like, old bonded couples who can’t get it up anymore?”

“Couples of all ages and experiences can benefit from intimacy counseling services, Bucky. And like I’ve said a million times before—you and Steve are a very special couple in uncharted territory. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help with the navigation.”

Bucky read the card again and blinked a few times. “I guess I’ll think about it,” he mumbled, in what was essentially a lie.

The harsh fluorescent lighting was starting to bother him again when Dr. Pete flashed him a dorky grin.

“Well, you’re all set for the day. Make sure to make your December appointment with Jessica before you leave, okay? Have a nice Thanksgiving.”

Bucky forced himself to return a smile and hastily stuffed the manilla business card in his messenger bag. He headed out the door and turned left towards the front desk.

—

By the following evening, Bucky’s mood wasn’t faring much better. Until his phone buzzed and name ’Stevie’ came up on his phone screen, with a picture of his dweeb-y boyfriend trying to kiss a duck in Central Park on their third date. Bucky knocked over his glass of water grabbing for it.

“Hey Stevie!”

“Hey, Buck.” It was a sigh of a greeting, but it told Bucky a lot. He felt a spike of worry flare up inside him.

“Steve? What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just landed. I’m coming straight home.” Steve paused again with another deep sigh. “I’m done with this day and I just… need to be with you.”

“Okay, yeah. Of course. I’ll be right here waiting for you,” Bucky replied softly. “I love you, Stevie.”

“Love you, too, baby. See you soon.”

The door opened thirty minutes later, and Bucky almost fell to the floor when he saw the man who walked through it.

The first thing Bucky noticed was that Steve was positively filthy from head to toe. The only thing about him that _wasn’t_ covered in dust and dirt was his gray dark gray zip-up hoodie covering his upper half— which also happened to be the only piece of _normal_ clothing he was wearing. Covering his legs and every other part visible part of him except for the head was his navy blue stealth suit. Bucky could see the shield and utility belt sticking haphazardly out of the duffel bag slung on his shoulder. The entirety of his large, bulky frame sagged, beaten and exhausted under the heavy weight of the day.

_Shit_ , Bucky thought. _He wasn’t kidding when he said he was coming straight from work._

Bucky had seen him in the suit before, sure— you don’t go steady with Captain America and _not_ put in a few special requests at home—but never after a mission. And _oh_ , how today’s mission had not been kind to Steve.

“Fuck, Steve! You’re bleeding!”

Bucky rushed to the door. Steve had a sizable cut on his left cheek and a gash over sharp cut of his jaw. Bucky could see that they were healing, probably had been for a couple hours now, but that didn’t stop the panic that instinctively set in at seeing his Alpha hurting. He stopped in front of Steve and helped him set down his duffel.

“It’s nothing, Buck.” Steve’s voice was tired. “An hour from now you won’t even know it was there.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Nothing new. Just had another building fall on me. Really, I’m fine.”

“What?!” Bucky squawked. “How can you just say you’re fine when a fucking _building_ —”

Steve moved down and cut him off with a kiss, catching Bucky’s two wrists out of mid-air where his hands had been on their way up to examine the wounds on Steve’s face. He redirected them and set Bucky’s palms flat against his kevlar-covered chest, allowing Bucky a place to steady himself, before moving his own hands down to rest on Bucky’s waist. He gently pulled the Omega tight against him.

“Hey angel,” Steve whispered, moving back from the kiss. He wasted no time tucking his nose down into Bucky’s neck and inhaling his scent. “Missed you. Hate being away from you.”

Bucky was still very much freaking out about the state Steve was in, but let himself be wooed for a moment. “I know, me too.” His lips twisted into a small smile. “Angel, huh?”

Steve hummed affirmatively into the skin of Bucky’s neck, before pulling back to look at him again. His blue eyes looked so, so tired.“That’s what you are, Bucky baby. You’re my angel.”

Bucky’s grin was nearly shy, with a just a hint of a blush. He moved his arms up around Steve’s neck and soon became unhappy to note that Steve’s smoky, woodsy scent was muddled by the smell of concrete dust (even if the added overtone of masculine, dried sweat was actually kind of doing it for him).

“You’re pretty filthy, soldier.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Steve pulled away and looked down to give himself a once over. “I guess I should get cleaned up before I put my dirty paws on you and all of our stuff.”

“How about I draw us a bath?” Bucky offered. He wanted to stay close to Steve now that he had him home, and he knew Steve was thinking the same. “That way you can put your dirty paws on me _while_ you’re getting cleaned up.”

“Mm, sounds like a perfect plan.” Steve flashed an impish grin. “Let me go peel off this suit.”

Ten minutes later found the two of them in the tub, Bucky’s chest pressed against Steve’s muscular back as he held the tired man in his arms, running a wash cloth anywhere he could reach on Steve’s hard body. He had cleaned up the cuts on Steve’s face while they waited for the tub to fill, and Bucky hadn’t been surprised to find them already looking better than when Steve first came home.

He set down the washcloth down and grabbed the bottle of shampoo, pouring an appropriate amount into his palms. “Wanna tell me about it?”

“Mm,” Steve moaned quietly as Bucky began to scrub his fingers through Steve’s scalp. “’Bout what, sweetheart?”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth turned up at the pet name; it wasn’t one that Steve used everyday, but it was the one Bucky secretly loved even more so than the others.

“How about the reason why there’s an especially exhausted-looking super solider in my arms right now?”

“Oh, that,” Steve sighed. “Nothing new. Just… sometimes I have to make decisions that I don’t want to make.” Steve closed his eyes when Bucky cupped some water in his palms and set out rinsing the shampoo from Steve’s hair. “And then I have to live with the consequences.”

“I’m sorry, Stevie,” Bucky said softly into his ear. He ran his hands through the blond’s soaked hair, working in conditioner. “I wish you didn’t have to make those kinds of choices. Wish you didn’t have a job that required you to get so beat up all of the time.” _Wish you didn’t think you owed this planet all the pieces of you._

“I can take the beatings, Buck. Kinda the point of me.”

“I didn’t just mean the physical beatings,” Bucky returned, voice soft and solemn. “And that is most certainly _not_ the point of you, Steve Rogers. You are so much more than just your body.”

Steve hummed but otherwise stayed quiet. Bucky finished rising the conditioner and began running his palms over Steve’s wet skin, soothing. Even with the bath he could feel the deep-seeded tension in the ropes of Steve’s muscle, keeping his whole body tight and unable to truly relax. He moved both hands upwards and began working his thumbs into Steve’s neck muscles.

“You’re so tense, baby.”

Steve inhaled deep as though to try and relax, to appreciate Bucky’s ministrations, but the skin on his forehead was furrowed and his mouth set in a frown.

“Will you let me take care of you tonight?”

Steve hummed noncommittally in response. “You already take care of me, Buck. All the time.”

“Not as much as I’d like too,” Bucky admitted. “I was thinking... If you’re okay with it—maybe we could finish up this bath and then you could lie on the bed for me, while I give you a massage?”

Steve opened one eye a little and looked up at Bucky’s imploring expression, seeming to consider the request.

“Okay. If you want that.”

Bucky smiled warmly and kissed Steve’s ear. “I do.”

He finished rinsing the shampoo and urged Steve to lean forward. Bucky extracted himself out of the tub and grabbed a couple of nearby towels, then leaned over to pull the plug. After coaxing Steve to standing, he rubbed the towel in the blond’s wet hair in quick little motions— a little like drying a wet dog. The playfulness of it drew a small smile from Steve, which Bucky counted as a victory.

They made their way out of the bathroom and Bucky directed Steve to lie face down on the center of the bed. Bucky went to turn off the lights, leaving the low glow of the bedside table lamp, and located the bottle of massage oil he had stashed in dresser. He donned a pair of briefs for himself and returned to the bed, settling himself in a straddle over the back of Steve’s thick thighs.

Bucky poured a little of the oil into his hands before capping the bottle and rubbing his palms together, warming the fluid. “Got some oil here, Stevie. Let me know if you don’t like it.” He laid his palms down and breathed in, focusing his attention on the mass of muscle beneath him.

Steve hummed appreciatively. “Mm. Feels good baby.”

“Good,” Bucky smiled. “That’s how I want you to feel.”

Bucky began with the cervical muscles at Steve’s neck, which was the most visibly tight area. He worked his thumbs in deep with all due care and reverence, listening for any noises from Steve and feeling and watching for feedback from the Alpha’s tired body. It was a body which Bucky had come to know well in the last three months, but which he was no less amazed by with every new day.

The thing about Steve’s physical form is that it was—unavoidably— tailor-built as a deadly weapon. Science and war had designed it to create violence; Steve could hold the world together with his fists, or he could decide to rip it apart.

But, _oh,_ to Bucky?

Steve’s body was an endless _landscape_ of beauty. Everything about it was taut vales of golden skin flowing between hard, muscled peaks—more than just a mountain of a man, but a sprawling _range_ of summits and slopes and foothills and anticlines. Bucky pressed his oiled fingertips along each ridge, smoothing over cliff faces and soothing tense sinew with his pressure and his touch, tracing each formation like trying to memorize imprints on the earth.

The sheer physicality of the man was beyond incredible to explore. Every minute detail of Steve’s form was a heady ode to the masculine, full of strapping temptation. Bucky’s own body was naturally lithe with a dash of curvature, but next to Steve he always felt small, safe.

A dusting of light brown hair covered the skin of Steve’s upper back and arms, the thinly furred planes of his shoulder blades dipping darker towards the thick patches in his armpits, forming a shaded gradient like the lighting in one of Steve’s charcoal drawings. Bucky had grown less shy since the Heat about the intimate way he loved to scent his Alpha’s underarms; so what if it was a little odd?

There was a truly inborn virility to Steve that Bucky wanted to sink his teeth into, to consume with unfettered greed— more out of wonder, even, than just lust. His built musculature hovered somewhere in the gray space between intimidation and security, depending on the angle of viewing (and, some days, Bucky couldn’t deny himself the the excitement of watching from both).

Bucky often found himself wishing that he could have met Steve in the skin of his first body. There was an element of curiosity, sure, but more so it was an itch to see the man that had been born so immeasurably perfect for Bucky in just the way he _had_ been born: small and frail, physically, but enormous and larger than life all the same. Bucky understood that truth without needing to physically see the Steve that existed before the serum.

Because more than beauty and muscle, _more_ than strength and skill and more than anything else, the body beneath Bucky’s hands was still the vessel that carried the whole of Steve Rogers: the flesh and blood temple that let him walk around this world, healthy and loving and brave and caring, and _Bucky’s_.

So for giving him _that_? Bucky worshipped the body Steve had now— unabashedly and without restraint.

Expertly placed attention on a particular knot between Steve’s trapezoids earned Bucky a quiet groan from the man beneath his hands.

“That feel good, babe?”

Steve just hummed, deep and appreciatively, in response. On Steve’s next deep exhale Bucky seized an opportunity to press down with his palms, putting his weight behind it and eliciting a satisfying popping noise that seemed to surprise the blond, who grunted pleasantly.

“Don’t know how I never noticed these knots before, Stevie. You gotta let me do this more often— regularly. You need it.”

“Hm. Maybe, Buck.” Bucky took the concession as a win.

Bucky shifted his body a little to focus both hands along the glorious build of Steve’s left arm. He worked down the complex and graceful length of it before showing love to the tendons winding through his enormous palm and long fingers and, finally, moving to right side of his body to do all of the same. Bucky unrepentantly loved the way that he could circle both hands around Steve’s biceps and still see a gap of several inches separating his fingertips. It took both of his thumbs to work out the tension in the enormous, bulked up lateral muscles at Steve’s elbows. 

After he was satisfied with his work on Steve’s arms, Bucky returned his attention to the larger man’s tired back and—slowly, taking his time— worked his nimble hands south. He eased out the knots in Steve’s lumbar and applied long, flowing strokes to the stiff muscles over his Iliac crests, stopping to admire the hard cut of his hips with barely-there kisses to Steve’s warm skin.

There was nothing inherently sexual to the massage. Nonetheless, the inevitable and indelible sensuality was ever-present. It made Bucky’s work feel somehow more important— the fact that he was doing this not only to relieve Steve of pain and tension, but also to shower his partner with devotion and tenderness.

So although it was not his intention, Bucky was unsurprised when he reached Steve’s gluteal muscles and the Alpha began to move his hips in shallow, slow movements, undulating down into the mattress and then back up into Bucky’s palms. Beautiful though it was to watch, Bucky gave a gently scolding squeeze to one hip for the way the motions made some of Steve’s newly relaxed muscles tense up again.

“Relax, Steve. I’ll take care you, just don’t go getting too excited right now.”

“Mm,” Steve protested weakly, but stilled his movements nonetheless.

Bucky pressed a chaste kiss to the mound of one of Steve’s pert ass cheeks as reward for his compliance, drawing a quiet and breathy moan from Steve. He decided to move his attention down to Steve’s thighs, where he unsurprisingly encountered tightly wound hamstrings and stiff quadriceps. Bucky backed off to a lighter touch after hearing Steve hiss a little at the initial press. He resumed working gently and slowly at first before incrementally increasing pressure, eventually feeling the muscles give beneath his hands.

After deciding that he had made satisfactory progress at Steve’s thighs, Bucky moved down to Steve’s sore calves and feet. He earned a few especially adorable giggles from the Alpha upon pressing several teasing, intimate kisses to the tips of his toes with a smile. (Bucky didn’t exactly have a “feet thing”— as Becca would have called it—but he most certainly did have a Steve Rogers thing.)

Finally, Bucky returned to Steve’s hips and ass, working his fingers in firm circles around his sciatic nerves. He had intentionally saved this area for last, knowing (or, maybe, hoping) what the attention would do to Steve. Sure enough, Bucky barely had begun to work out the tension in Steve’s gluteals before the Alpha started moving his hips again.

“ _Fuck_ , baby. I want you,” Steve groaned into the duvet. “Wanna... wanna be inside you.”

Bucky wondered if Steve could hear the way his words made Bucky’s heart beat faster at the anticipation of finally getting what they had been missing since the Heat. He leaned over and placed a sensual kiss on the shell of Steve’s ear.

“Yeah?” Bucky teased. “How bad do you want me?”

Steve turned his head into the whisper and Bucky figured he was leaning in for a kiss—but then Steve growled low in his throat and gravity became very strange, very quickly. Bucky was somehow instantly flat on his back, caged in under Steve’s enormous frame, the Alpha having apparently rolled out to flip Bucky over like a sparring opponent with such swift, clean precision that Bucky blinked and missed it entirely.

_Fucking super soldier._

Above him, Steve’s grin was predatory and a little lazy, still loose from the massage.

“How bad does it _feel_ like I want it?”

Steve emphasized his meaning by grinding his nearly full erection into the crease of Bucky’s thigh. Bucky hissed at the sweet friction of Steve’s abdominal muscles against his own dick, trapped in his briefs between their stomachs and filling up quickly. He forced himself to pull together and shoot a disapproving glare up at Steve.

“ _You_ ,” Bucky chided, “are supposed to be relaxing and letting me do all the work. Remember?”

Steve ignored his prodding, opting instead to rub his nose into the side of the smaller man’s neck and let Bucky feel the scrape of beard against his cheek and collarbone.

He huffed and pushed his palms against Steve’s (absolutely unreasonable) pecs, shoving him up and then over to lie on his back next to Bucky.Of course, Bucky couldn’t actually _shove_ Steve anywhere, but his gentle giant humored him and went willingly with just a small roll of his eyes.

Bucky wasted no time removing his own briefs, tossing them somewhere unimportant, before climbing on top of Steve and straddling his waist. He felt Steve’s cock— which extended up almost past the Alpha’s navel when lying down fully erect— hot and hard under Bucky’s taint.

Grinning, Bucky leaned forward and began trailing featherlight kisses along the curve of Steve’s muscled chest. Steve brought one hand to Bucky’s hip and cocked his head over to the side, looking Bucky up and down appreciatively.Steve moved his other hand to Bucky’s dick between them, wrapping lightly and giving him one firm, full stroke. The move pulled a whimper from Bucky, who straightened up and arched his back.

“Mm… Can’t deny the view down here is pretty amazing,” Steve drawled, a glint of light catching in his darkening eyes when the hand on his hip moved to graze over the curved top of Bucky’s ass. Soon there were fingers wandering down his cleft. “You gonna let me get you ready, or am I banned from doing that work too?”

Bucky smirked and leaned back down and caught his mouth in a hot, slow kiss.

“I guess I’ll allow it,” he breathed against Steve’s lips. “Just don’t take forever. Need to get you in me... been _way_ too long, Stevie.”

Removing his hand from Bucky’s dick, Steve groaned and took both round globes of Bucky’s ass into his big hands, squeezing and spreading moving in little circles. “I know, baby, _fuck.”_ Steve’s eyes clamped shut briefly as he gave an involuntary thrust of his hips up into Bucky’s. “I’ve been thinking about it, too.”

Just when Bucky could feel himself beginning to leak slick in earnest, Steve ran one finger through the rapidly forming mess, teasing over his entrance. Bucky moaned and rocked his hips back into the sensation.

“Still can never believe how wet you get for me,” he said, wonder coloring his tone. “You’re so fucking incredible.”

“Get a move on, Rogers,” Bucky gritted out. “Fingers. In me. _Now_.”

“So needy,” Steve teased, shooting him a coy, lopsided smile as he easily slipped in two fingers.

Bucky didn’t bother with a snarky response. He instead tipped his head back and whined, rocking onto the fingers in his ass. It earned him a sultry hum of approval from Steve.

“So good, Buck,” he crooned. Bucky felt his inner Omega preening at the praise. “You think you can take another one?”

Whenever Steve was just fingering Bucky to get him off, not to prep and stretch him, he typically didn’t take it past two. _Real_ prep— where Steve’s cock was involved— required double that number. For as much and as often as Steve had his fingers in Bucky since they’d been together, it remained true that he was the first and only Omega Steve had ever been with; the Alpha still hadn’t quite figured out just how quickly and smoothly Bucky’s gender could open up with the right level of arousal and good foreplay.

“ _Yes_ , please,” Bucky hissed in answer. “‘M ready.”

Steve scissored the two fingers a little before sliding in a third. He pumped them in and out a few times, slowly, letting Bucky really feel it. The stretch was undoubtedly real, but Bucky could already feel his body adjusting.

Without warning, Steve curled his fingers into Bucky’s prostate, eliciting a hot moan of surprise from the smaller man. When Bucky looked down, Steve’s eyes were darker than ever and looking up at him with an heady mixture of arousal and pure fondness.

“I might just keep doing this all night if means gettin’ those sounds outta you—”

“ _Fuck no_!” Bucky shouted, grinding down into Steve’s fingers hard enough that he rubbed his ass against the swollen erection in the other man’s lap. “I _am_ going to ride your cock!”

Steve laughed, warm and deep, before curling his fingers again and forcing another moan out of his Omega. “Only teasing.”

“Stop your teasing and give me another finger.”

Steve smiled and bit his lip. “Of course,” he agreed. “Anything you want, beautiful.”

True to his word, Steve slipped his pinky finger alongside the other three. He altered his current focus on getting a rise out of Bucky in favor of working his fingers carefully, purposefully, to open Bucky up enough to take the Alpha’s girth. Bucky was so wet that his slick began dripping down onto Steve’s lap.

After allowing himself several long moments to simply enjoy the intimate sensation of being massaged from the inside out by Steve’s tender attentions, Bucky soon reach a hand back and stilled the other man’s wrist.

“I’m ready, Stevie.”

Steve paused his ministrations and seemed to consider Bucky’s declaration for a moment, titling his head to the side, but made no move to actually remove them. Soon Bucky felt him starting up again, teasing a little press into his prostate. A moan caught in Bucky’s throat before he could vocalize a protest.

“Tell you what, baby,” Steve drawled, crooked smile full of mirth and a little danger. “The _second_ time I make you come tonight, I’ll make damn sure you do it with my cock inside you.”

And that was all the warning Bucky got before Steve was doubling his previous pace with his fingers and wrapping his other hand around Bucky’s dick. Bucky yelped and threw his head back, helpless against the aggressive tempo Steve set with his simultaneous stroking and pumping.

“ _Fuck_!”

Less than thirty seconds passed before Bucky was coming with his ass clamping around Steve’s fingers, his dick shooting watery come over Steve’s hand, his Alpha’s name on his lips. When he came down from the shocked high Steve was still there below him, self-satisfied grin on his face. Still dizzy, Bucky leaned over and tried his damndest to kiss the look off of Steve’s face.

“You are the fucking devil, Rogers,” he grumbled. He bit sharply at Steve’s bottom lip before pulling back and straightening up again. “Now... You are going _lay_ there and let me ride you. Got it?”

Steve’s breath hitched and his eyes lit up as though he hadn’t actually considered until just then that Bucky would actually _be_ riding him. Bucky nearly laughed.

Taking a deep breath to collect himself, Steve nodded and removed his wet fingers from Bucky. “Yes, sir.”

And if Steve shot him a sly little smile while opting to lick his soaked fingers clean, instead of wiping them against the sheets? Well, Bucky refused to let that distract him from his mission.

Bucky reached a hand back to wrap around Steve’s rock hard erection, giving it a few good pumps. He canted his hips until he could feel the wide head of Steve’s cock at his entrance. Locking eyes with Steve, he began to slide down slowly, opening himself up with the hot, thick cock, feeling every inch of his Alpha slip into his body for the first time ever outside of a Heat.

Steve’s eyes grew progressively wider with every centimeter of progress, gaze wild and fixed on the place where his heavy cock was disappearing into Bucky’s body. His mouth dropped open, and when he spoke, his voice sounded absolutely wrecked.

“ _Jesus_ , Bucky.”

Fucking _finally_ Bucky heard his blood singing with the euphoria of having his body filled to the brim. The slight sting of the stretch was dull white noise in his brain, adding something secondary and just right to overall sensation. He heard himself let out a broken little whimper when his ass finally rested back against Steve’s strong thighs.

Steve groaned beneath him. “You’re so fucking tight, _Christ_.” Steve sounded genuinely strained and his face was flushed red. “You sure this is good, baby? Uh, _fuck_ — did we stretch you enough?”

“Feels fucking _perfect_ ,” Bucky moaned, truthfully. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, lips parted, and began to move his hips in small circles. “Mm… Love taking you deep like this.”

Up in his little cloud, Bucky breathed into the stretching sensation and ground down against Steve’s cock, getting them both used to the feeling of their bodies being slotted together so perfectly again. He could feel his own dick starting to firm up again.

Bucky felt strong hands running up and down his thighs where they were splayed across Steve’s muscled abdomen. When Bucky opened his eyes again and looked down, the expression he saw on Steve’s face stole his breath right out of his lungs.

Steve was looking up at Bucky with a blend of disbelief and unabashed reverence, almost worshipfulness. It reminded Bucky of the way he had called him ‘angel’ earlier that same evening, because Steve looked as though he was seeing one right then— there, in their shared bed, open and bare above him.

Bucky couldn’t help but kiss him.

For a long while they simply lay together, connected hips and lips and lungs in all most the intimate ways possible. They were still like that when Steve spoke, hot against Bucky’s mouth, “I love you, Buck.” It was said like a benediction, and the words always messed Bucky up in ways he never fully expected.

“I love you, too.” Even as he said it, he couldn’t help but think that it was a waste of his breath; he knew that Steve had already tasted the words before they ever left Bucky’s lips.

Feeling adjusted enough, Bucky straightened his spine and braced his palms against Steve’s sturdy shoulders, rising up just an inch or two before sinking back down. The two exchanged feverish moans and Steve’s grip tightened around Bucky’s hips, but he continued to let the smaller man move around on him however Bucky saw fit.

In fact, Steve remained admirably still for some time after Bucky began to ride him in earnest, setting a moderate, even pace, never lifting more than halfway off of Steve’s cock before rolling his hips down again. He seemed committed to letting Bucky take the lead as he had promised him, and Bucky’s Omega sensibilities were delighted at the opportunity to take care of his exhausted Alpha.

He had some less than stellar opinions about the altruistic way that Steve regarded his own super solider body: a tank armored to withstand evil’s battering rams, a punching bag to shield the world from hurt, a flesh and blood shock absorber for all of humanity’s benefit. Bucky hated that Steve thought that way— but right then, as Bucky used his own body in service to his lover, to help him ease away the rest of the world’s problems by giving pleasure that was for Steve and Steve alone, Bucky found himself empathetic to the sentiment. It felt undeniably right to use himself in whatever way did the most good.

And _god_ — Bucky’s Alpha was so damn gorgeous in the letting go; eyes closed, jaw slack, flushed lips parted to let out breathy, blissed-out sounds. The way his position on top allowed Bucky to control the tease of pressure against his own prostate was merely an added bonus.

As Bucky expected, Steve’s restraint didn’t last forever. The next time Bucky lowered himself down to meet him in a kiss, Steve moaned and placed a strong but gentle hand to the back of Bucky’s head, a silent request to remain. He wrapped his other arm around Bucky’s waist and began thrusting up to meet each roll of Bucky’s hips.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky gasped when the pressure on his prostate was suddenly doubled.

“You feel so good, sweetheart. Fuck... I want you to have _everything_. ”

Steve soon quickened his pace and Bucky found himself slowly surrendering control, satisfied that Steve was still getting what Bucky wanted to give him. The strong arm around his waist moved and then a wonderfully calloused hand was wrapping around Bucky’s cock, pumping in time with each of Steve’s thrusts.

Sometimes— like the last time— Bucky’s orgasms could hit him like a freight car; hard and all at once. But this time when he came, it started with the hot coil of desire in his belly and turned into a crackling, electric feeling at the base of his spine. It rose up inside him slowly, like mercury in a glass tube, tugging harder at the tight feeling in his balls as it creeped higher and higher inside him. When it reached his throat it was like a violin string snapping, ripping a startled moan from his lungs as his entire body finally let go and he spilled himself over Steve’s hand.

“So perfect, baby,” Steve rasped into Bucky’s ear as he fucked him through it.

When Bucky came back down to earth, Steve was cleaning up his hand for show with little kitten licks, impish grin on his face. Then Steve’s hands were on his waist again, moving Bucky up off of Steve’s cock.

“No, wait.” Bucky stilled Steve with a hand to his hip. “I want to keep going.”

“You’ve gotta be over-sensitive by now,” Steve protested.

“I want to feel you come inside me. Please?”

Even while he spoke, Bucky began moving again, dragging his insides up and down over the girthy weight inside him. Steve’s eyes fluttered shut as he surrendered and let out a broken groan. Bucky took it as his cue to pick up the pace.

Before long he could see and hear and feel Steve tumbling towards his own edge. Bucky began lifting his hips higher each time and letting gravity take him down hard, falling onto Steve’s lap. The filthy sounds of skin slapping on skin filled their bedroom.

“Gonna knot me, Stevie?” Bucky teased, playing up the husk in his voice.

...And that’s when something in Steve’s demeanor changed, rather suddenly.

His breathing became hitched, not unlike the hiccups. His expression shifted from ecstasy to something that was near unreadable, but looked a lot like anxiety. Bucky could feel Steve’s erection flagging inside him— not quite struggling to stay in, but still making the slide more difficult.

Something _definitely_ wasn’t right. Bucky slowed his movements to a crawl.

“Hey... hey. You okay?” he asked gently, laying a hand on the side of Steve’s head, trying to get him to meet a Bucky’s eyes.

Steve blinked several times, hard and rapid like he was trying to shake a thought from his head and refocus. He huffed out a breath and grasped Bucky’s hips harder, shifting both of their bodies as he spread his legs and planted his feet on the bed. Then, he set his face with a determined expression and started fucking up into Bucky at a near punishing pace.

If Steve was attempting to power through something, it clearly wasn’t working. The cock in Bucky’s ass grew even softer, and he could tell it would begin to slip out before long.

“Steve,” Bucky interrupted, hands grasping for purchase on his Alpha’s abdomen— which was rather difficult, given the pace and the sweat and massage oil. When Steve didn’t respond, Bucky repeated himself. “Steve— Steve, hold on.”

Steve finally aborted his thrusting and let out a pained groan. The sound made Bucky’s heart hurt.

“What’s the matter, baby? Talk to me.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me—”

“Hey,” Bucky cut him off. “There is nothing _wrong_ with you. Nothing. You just need to tell me what’s going on.”

Steve sighed and threw his head back against the pillow, eyes squeezed shut in frustration and self-directed anger. Bucky wanted to help him so badly; he wanted to fix any and every single bad thing rattling around in Steve’s head— even if he had no idea what those things actually were.

But… Bucky could still distract him.

“Do you feel good right now?” he asked Steve, making an effort to keep his voice sultry but gentle. “Do you like being inside me?”

The blond’s eyes flew open to meet Bucky’s questioning stare and Steve groaned, nodding vehemently.

“I _love_ being inside you— wish I could live every second like this.”

Bucky smiled sweetly and kissed Steve’s temple.

“Then that’s the only thing that matters right now. Yeah? That’s all you need to be thinking about.”

He leaned his forehead against Steve’s and captured his mouth in a deep, sensual kiss. Bucky took everything slow, pacing his own breathing in a focused manner to encourage Steve to mimic him. He began to grind his hips down on Steve’s cock just minutely, enough to tease but not enough to tug at Steve’s focus.

“Just feel me,” he whispered. “You’re mine.” _Kiss_. “And I’m all your’s.” _Kiss_. “No matter what.” _Kiss_.

Bucky felt Steve beginning to relax again, letting Bucky keep hold of the reigns. He kept kissing him and kissing him, reveling in Steve’s pleasured little exhalations as they picked up. The cock in his ass had grown hard again, and soon Steve was full on moaning against his mouth. Bucky swallowed the sounds and kissed him harder, and Steve began thrusting up into him once more.

Blissful minutes passed in a haze of hot little whines and moans. Then, just as Bucky felt the beginnings of Steve’s knot growing at the base of his cock, barely starting to catch at catch at his rim...

Steve’s thrusts began to falter again.

And that’s when it all came together in Bucky’s head: the memory of how Steve had lost control during his rut, the way he had come around, _terrified_ out of his skin, the way he had cried when he thought he hurt Bucky, and _now_ —

_He’s afraid to knot me._

The reality of it hit him like a ton of bricks. But, even in the overwhelming haze of shock and confusion, Bucky found that he somehow still knew what he needed to be doing.

“Hey,” he said, pulling back breathlessly and catching Steve’s face between his hands.The blond’s brow was now furrowed almost painfully in his frustration. “It’s alright. Everything is alright. Give me your hand?”

Uncertainty peeked through Steve’s anxiousness but he complied, offering his right hand. Bucky took it and gestured for him to slow his thrusts, which he did, enough for Bucky to note the slight softness returning to his erection.

Bucky took his own left hand, the metallic skin of his graft glimmering in the low light of their bedroom, and laced their fingers together. Slowly, he guided their joined fists down between Bucky’s legs and wrapped around the base of Steve’s cock. Steve gasped at the sudden realization of Bucky’s intention, and together, Bucky led them in locking their fingers around Steve’s uninflated knot.

“Just like this,” Bucky whispered. “Okay? Do you want to stop?”

“No,” Steve rasped, shaking his head and swallowing and looking up at Bucky like he couldn’t believe he was real. “No, this is good. I want this. I want you. _Please_.”

Bucky worked around the sightly awkward angle and leaned down to kiss Steve again, rolling his hips experimentally at first. He kept their hands tight at the base of Steve’s dick as he began to move his body up and down on the shaft inside him once more. Being on top probably wasn’t the best position to be trying this in, but they made it work, and Bucky soon felt Steve returning to full hardness.

Apparently, being brought to the edge twice in quick succession before being tugged back by his own anxiety left Steve on a hair trigger. Bucky could tell Steve was getting close to coming by the telltale half-growl, half-grunt sounds that were coming out of him every time Bucky brought his hips down, his swollen rim kissing up against their joined fists and _fuck_ — it all still felt _so_ damn good. He’d remained soft after his second orgasm, but only because he’d had to keep his mind (mostly) clear and focus sharp on reading the signs coming from Steve’s body.

Bucky Barnes loved Steve Rogers with a heat that threatened to burn right through his sternum. It was the kind of love that could only come from taking apart a person and seeing what they're made from. He ran his lips over the juncture of Steve’s neck and shoulder, kissing the golden skin there, and then Steve was knotting their fists and coating the smaller man’s insides with what might as well been holy water to Bucky, because _goddamn_ did it feel every bit like a blessing.

Minutes later, when the knot went down— quicker than it would have if it were inside his body— Bucky leaned down to pepper Steve’s gorgeous face with soft kisses. He willed himself to pour out as much of that love as he could make to physically manifest, so Steve would know exactly all the things in this world that he meant to Bucky. The rest he allowed to manifest in words.

“Thank you,” he whispered against Steve’s temple. “I love you, Steve. I love you so, _so_ much.”

“I love you, too. _So_ fucking much,” Steve answered. His voice sounded cracked and exhausted, an exposed nerve ending in the shape of a man. “Some days I still don’t believe you’re real. Feels— feels like somehow, I’ve always loved you. Even when I didn’t know you.”

Bucky smiled softly at that and felt his heart threaten to explode. Still straddling his lap, he reached a hand up to cup Steve’s cheek.

“You’ve always known me,” he stated, simply. “I was made for you, remember?”

And it was true. Steve was the answer to all of Bucky’s questions, and he knew that Steve felt the same.

Steve exhaled a breath that Bucky didn’t realize he’d been holding and sniffled, but his grin was sweet and bright. Bucky wondered if his own eyes were shiny and watering, too. Like Steve’s were.

“You _were_ made for me. ’S’like when I was waiting there in the ice, the universe decided I would need something— _someone_ — to come home to when I woke up.” He wrapped his arms around Bucky entirely, bodily, pulling him in until there was no space to speak of between their skin. “You’re it for me, Buck.”

Bucky felt tears slip down his face as his heart became an absolute supernova, bursting bright and explosive between his lungs. Steve swiped at the wetness with his thumb and placed a chaste peck against Bucky’s nose. It pulled a quiet laugh from Bucky, but the sound barely made it out of his throat, caught back by the over-welling fountain of emotion bubbling up inside of him.

Steve maneuvered them to lay together on their sides, still facing each other. When Steve’s softened dick slipped out of Bucky he could feel the sensation of all that copious come dripping out of him, and he was suddenly thankful for the ridiculous quantity of extra sheet sets Steve had filled their linen closet with after moving in ( _‘Looking forward to nesting, much?’ Bucky had teased, and had been pleased to see Steve’s shy blush in response_ ). Tonight they were exhausted and content to lie in their mess; they’d take care of the evidence in the morning.

The two held each other quietly for what must have been quite a long time. Eventually, Steve broke the silence.

“I’m going to ask for some time off. A couple of months, maybe.” He nuzzled his face into the side of Bucky’s neck, breathing in deep. “I just need to be here for awhile. With you,” he sighed. “ _Home_.”

The juxtaposition of seeing his strong, incredible partner that was always everything _Alpha_ suddenly seem so beaten and so, so very small had Bucky trying twice to find the voice in his own throat.

“I think that’s a good idea, baby.”

Steve kept his nose where it was, tucked into Bucky’s neck, chin resting on his shoulder. Bucky soon felt his eyelids growing heavy. He let himself sink into sleep, the somber anxiety in his brain giving way to the warmth of his Alpha laving slow, loving attention into the intimate slope of his neck like it was nothing short of a balm on his very soul.

\---

Steve awoke before Bucky next morning. The savory smell of omelettes was already filling the apartment by the time Bucky cracked open his eyes.

He first washed up with a wet cloth in the bathroom before throwing on a fresh pair of briefs and one of Steve’s enormous sweatshirts. When he emerged, Steve was seated at the kitchen table in the chair facing the bedroom. One strong hand was wrapped around the handle of his coffee mug while the other held a packet of paper covered in SHIELD watermarks. His forehead was creased, faceset in a frown as he focused on whatever he was reading. Bucky had never seen him look older.

“Hey,” Bucky spoke softly, leaning against the door frame.

Steve, not having previously noticed Bucky’s presence, immediately looked up and set down his paper. His entire countenance shifted into something softer as he looked Bucky over from head to toe, taking in the sight of his partner: healthy, safe, home. Loved.

“Good morning, gorgeous.”

Bucky smiled and crossed the room to plant a sweet kiss on Steve’s temple.

“Omelettes with Swiss and onions?”

“Of course.”

“Mm, I love you so much.”

Steve fondly returned the smile as he watched Bucky fill up two plates— one piled much higher than the other— and take a seat next to him at the table.

“You know that I love you, too.”

They shared the breakfast Steve had made for them in relative silence. Bucky’s mind was still stuck on their shared intimacies of the previous night, knowing that they _needed_ to talk about it, but not knowing how quite to start.

Steve beat him to it.

“Last night,” the Alpha spoke suddenly, setting down his fork, “I... I don’t know what happened, Buck. Or at least how to explain it. I’m so sorry.”

Bucky looked from his plate and came face to face with the most dejected-looking version of Steve Rogers he had ever seen. It wasn’t only the absence of confidence—of self- _worth_ that struck him, but also the presence of what could only described as shame. It filled every shadow on his face.

The sound of a fork clattering against a plate rang out when Bucky’s hand shot out to cover Steve’s.

“Hey,” he said, “ _no_. You have nothing to be sorry about. Okay? I loved what we did together.”

“I loved it too— _god_ , you have no idea how much I loved it— but c’mon, I couldn’t even do the one thing that—”

“ _Steve_ , no,” Bucky interjected with as much authority as he could muster. “None of that. You are not defined by your body or what your body does. You have so much more to offer than just that.” He squeezed Steve’s hand for emphasis; this was not an item he was willing to debate. “Hm? You understand?”

For the first time since they had started talking, Steve did look him in the eye. “I don’t think it was just a fluke, baby. And I want to be able to do that for you. For _us_.”

But Bucky just couldn’t argue, not when Steve was looking at him like that.

“We’ll figure it out, okay?” He smiled in a way that he hoped was comforting, even if it felt weak. “We’ll do it together.”

The two of them resumed eating their breakfast and Bucky changed the subject. They talked about Steve taking time off soon— how he had to debrief this mission and tie up some loose ends, but he could probably take all of December and January off. How they could spend Christmas together, maybe even just the two of them.

Bucky was washing the dishes after they finished when he remembered. He dried his hands on the dish towel and retrieved his messenger bag from the living room, fishing through its contents for a discarded scrap of paper.

When he found what he was looking for Bucky walked back to the kitchen table, where Steve was still seated with his coffee and his papers. He dropped the business card on the table and watched for any changes in his boyfriend’s expression as he read it.

“Okay,” Steve said— quiet, _heartbreakingly_ quiet, and with none of the shock or confusion or indignation that Bucky had expected.

“Really?”

“Yeah. If that’s what you think we need, I’ll do it.”

“Okay. I’ll, um. I’ll call and make an appointment.” He paused for a beat, debating on how much more he should say. “Dr. Pete gave it to me. I didn’t ask for it, but he thought that maybe we… were in a place to need some help?”

“Dr. Pete’s a smart guy. And I think he’s right.” Steve suddenly stood and wrapped Bucky tight in his arms. He laid his chin on the top of Bucky’s head and spoke softly. “I would do anything for you. You know that, right?”

Soon after, when Bucky was done wiping the couple of escaped tears on Steve’s shirt, he walked to the bedroom and grabbed his phone off the dresser. He dialed the number on the card.

_“Good morning, you’ve reached the office of Dr. Anna Welsh. How can I assist you?”_

“Hi, um— My name is Bucky? I’d like to make an appointment.”


	2. Therapy (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky visit a sex therapist and visit the Barnses.

Dr. Welsh’s waiting room was a collection of warm tones, plush furniture, and the occasional bonsai tree. Bucky and Steve had arrived to their appointment a bit early, but as the doctor’s final patients of the day, they were the only ones waiting. They sat next to each other on the soft couch in a silence filled with mutual comfort.

Bucky let his eyes rove over Steve’s expression and body language and found that he looked every bit the paradox of a man that he was in that moment. His cut, bearded jawline and the impossible width of his shoulders screamed to the world that Steve Rogers was the paragon of super strength, the ultimate _Alpha_ — but then the way his spine was curving forward, his chin laying low to his chest betrayed the fact that this man was also weighed down by his own hurting, confusion, shame. Bucky wanted to wave a magic wand and fix everything but he couldn’t, didn’t even know what exactly needed fixing at all, and it hurt him in his very core.

He prayed to God that they were in the right place.

—

Anna Welsh was a strikingly tall woman. She looked to be in her mid-forties or fifties and was objectively beautiful with her rich, dark skin, a streak of gray in her otherwise black hair that was currently styled in tight spirals. From the absence of any particular scent, Bucky gathered that she either used Beta wash or was a Beta herself. She wore wide-brimmed eyeglasses and a warm smile that Bucky hoped could help thaw the chill hiding in his bones on this cloudy Tuesday in November.

After greeting them herself in the waiting room, Dr. Welsh led Bucky and Steve into a large, well-decorated office with huge windows and beautiful leather furniture. There was a desk in the corner, but as she gestured for the two men to sit together on the large couch opposite the desk she took her own seat in a comfy-looking armchair, facing them.

There was something about her that Bucky immediately liked.

Dr. Welsh set her clipboard on the side of her desk, out of the way. In the thick ream of papers, Bucky noticed a few pages sticking out that were imprinted with the letterhead he recognized from Dr. Pete’s practice— unsurprising, since he had requested his file be released to Dr. Welsh’s office.

“Steve, Bucky—I’ll tell you what I would like to do today, since this is our first session together.” She clasped her hands together over her knee and leaned a bit towards them, as though to make the room seem smaller and the setting more intimate. “The first thing I’d like is for the two of you to tell me a little bit about your history. As a couple.”

Bucky furrowed his brow in confusion, eyes shifting between the doctor’s face and the obvious medical file in her clipboard. Dr. Welsh noticed.

“Yes, I reviewed the history that Pete— Dr. Harlow’s office sent over. But I don’t just mean your medical history— as interesting as it is— and I don’t just mean the Heat you shared.” She leaned back in her seat then, getting comfortable. “We’ve a full two hours together today. Once we’re all comfortable that we’ve established some helpful context for the rest of our discussions, the second thing I’d like is for you to explain to me what you hope to get out of these sessions.” She smiled, looking back and forth between them. “Does that sound okay?”

Bucky looked at Steve. The outline Dr. Welsh had laid out for them wasn’t exactly what Bucky had expected, but he was glad of it when he saw the way Steve’s demeanor relaxed so significantly. She was asking them to start with something easy, something good; something they could talk about with a smile on their faces. They would work up to the hard stuff. Bucky looked back to the doctor and nodded.

“Great. Why don’t you start with telling me how you met?”

Bucky turned his head to find Steve grinning at him impishly.

“I had the good manners to barge in on Bucky while the poor guy was just trying to work.”

They found that they could fall into it easily— telling Dr. Welsh their story. There was comfort to be found in reliving drinks shared at wine bars and dates in the park, as they held each other’s hands through each collaborative recounting. They found it easy to get lost in all their favorite details, which Dr. Welsh appeared to not only appreciate, but to encourage. She never acted annoyed at them for getting off track with a side story, or for stopping to explain an inside joke that was really only ever going to be funny to the two of them.

Occasionally, as certain intricacies would emerge about the logistics of their lives, Steve would shoot Dr. Welsh a sidelong, uncertain look. Eventually she interrupted him with a smile and told them that she was aware that Steve was Steve _Rogers_ , but that it was functionally irrelevant for their purposes in therapy. She reminded them of their provider-patient confidentiality and kindly asked them to continue.

It was a sort of _fun,_ in many ways, and Steve was even smiling—but, soon, they arrived at the part of their story where the retelling became more… complicated. They recounted the home test, how they’d found out they were highly— _very_ highly— Compatible, and how they’d made plans for the future Heat. Then, to Bucky’s surprise and relief, Dr. Welsh interrupted for only the second time since they began.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to hold off on hearing your account of that part. For now.” She placed a hand on top of the huge paper file off to the side of the desk. “I have Bucky's medical file from the hospital stay, and more so, I’ve spoken with Dr. Harlow in detail— both about what you’ve told him and what he’s observed. We can come back to it later, but for now, why don’t you tell me about how your relationship has developed since Bucky’s Heat?”

Steve appeared to share in Bucky’s feeling of relief. With the exception of Becca and Natasha, neither of them had actually told another person about what happened. This was both because it was incredibly personal, and because it was incredibly difficult to explain. Without the benefit of the listener being an expert on Compatibility— like Dr. Pete, and maybe Dr. Welsh— or an expert on _them_ — like Becca and Natasha— Bucky was terrified that someone would listen and hear only how Steve had become feral, or how Bucky had pushed him into it from the beginning.

Bucky took a deep breath and picked up where Dr. Welsh had asked them to.

“It was... a lot, a first. Coming down from that experience. But we did it, together.” He squeezed Steve’s hand with a smile. “It made things so real, so fast. Not _too_ fast,” he clarified, “it felt right. It was just... faster than I think either of us were expecting.”

Steve nodded. “I think there was definitely a bit of whiplash, at first. But we had each other.”

“Yeah, we did,” Bucky grinned. He locked eyes with Steve and allowed the office around them to fall away for a moment. “You kissed me in that hospital bed, and you told me you were in love with me.”

Steve grinned back. Ear-to-ear. “And you were crazy enough to say it back.”

They shared another silent moment, their hands joined, just smiling at each other. In the periphery of Bucky’s hearing he caught the scratch of Dr. Welsh penning down a note in her file, for the first time since they’d started.

“Is that also when you decided to move in together?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve responded. “I stayed at Bucky’s apartment the night we came home from the hospital, and when I woke up in the morning, I realized I couldn’t ever just leave again. Suppose I didn’t give him much of a choice,” he joked.

Bucky winked at him. “More like he saved me the embarrassment of begging him to stay."

They told her all about life after moving in together. Steve bragged on how quickly Bucky got over his fear of riding a motorcycle. Bucky praised Steve for how good he was at putting down cookies after a bout of Bucky’s stress baking. They pointed accusational fingers at each other for the load of blue jeans that mysteriously got bleached in the laundry.

And they skirted around the topic of sex _completely_.

The avoidance was self-defeating, Bucky knew; talking about sex was the reason they were there in the first place. It wasn’t even that they didn’t talk about sex at home— they were _filthy_ together: handsy and verbal and loving and damn straight nasty, some days. But there, on a couch where they were supposed to be sorting out their deeper issues with sex as a couple, it was hard to voluntarily depart from the warm feeling they got from counting all the reasons why their love came so easily.

The perceptive doctor heard what they chose to share, and noticed what they did not. 

“I don’t take it lightly that you trust me with all the intimate details of your life together. Thank you. I’m honored that you’ve asked me to be a part of keeping this relationship happy and healthy— for you both.” She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to talk about your sexual history, now.”

Bucky felt Steve tense up again for the first time since they’d started talking.

“Our history together?” Steve asked, cautiously. “Or separately?”

“Together, primarily. Although if you feel there are important details you want to share with me regarding your individual histories, feel free to do so. Anything you want to share is important to me.”

Bucky met Steve’s eyes, squeezed one of his enormous hands between both of his smaller palms.

“How do you wanna start, baby?” Bucky asked him.

“If I may make a suggestion,” Dr. Welsh interrupted, “I encourage you to tell _each other_ how you remember your experiences. Instead of telling me directly. I'll just sit here and listen.”

Bucky wasn’t sure if that would make this conversation easier or harder, but he was willing to give it a shot.He gave Steve a reassuring smile and started out easy.

“You kissed me for the first time under the fire escape.”

Steve chuckled. “I tried to scent you when I thought you wouldn’t notice.”

“I _did_ notice,” Bucky teased, “and I scented you right back.”

Steve sat up a little straighter, his posture showing more confidence. “I finally let you in my pants on our fourth date,” he said with a shit-eating grin. Bucky barked out a laugh.

“Caught onto my frustration on dates one through three, did ya?” Steve’s eyes sparkled with mirth. “That’s a bold-faced lie anyways. I got you into _my_ pants on our fourth date. Didn’t let me into yours until the fifth.”

Steve blushed through his smile then, looking down at the tops of his thighs. He peeked up at Dr. Welsh with a questioning look.

“How, uh... _specific_ should we get, Doc?”

“In general, as specific as you’re comfortable with. But the more I know, the more I can assist with intimacy-related issues.”

Steve’s blush spread down his neck. In another setting, Bucky might have poked fun at him for his public-facing prudishness, as he sometimes did. While Steve had (in Bucky’s opinion) generally adjusted brilliantly to life and living in the twenty-first century, there were still parts of him that stood out as overly conservative and polite. Talking about sex to a complete stranger went against everything his mother had ever taught him. Bucky squeezed his hand sympathetically and took the lead.

“On the fourth date, you made me come with your mouth and your hands.” He heard Steve’s breath hitch and saw him wriggle a little in discomfort, but he kept his eyes on Bucky. Bucky pressed on with a flirty smile. “The next time we were together, I went down on you.”

A nervous, low-pitched laugh rumbled around in Steve’s deep chest at the memory. “I’d never felt anything like it before,” he said, and then it was Bucky’s turn to blush. He hoped that the pink on the tops of his cheeks would distract Steve from anything on his face that indicated a growing nervousness. Bucky knew what came next.

“The third time the clothes came off,” and Bucky winced when he heard his own voice crack open a millimeter, “was when I was in Heat.”

For a moment, Bucky regretted saying it. He should have let Steve enjoy the warm, happy memory of getting his dick sucked for _just_ a moment longer. Instead, Bucky now felt the Alpha’s heart rate skyrocket through the pulse of his hand.

Maybe Dr. Welsh smelled the anxiety coming from Steve; maybe she was just that good at reading situations. “We don’t have to talk about this part in detail, if you’re not ready yet. I understand it may be difficult to put into words.” Bucky and Steve exhaled almost simultaneously, then nodded their appreciation.“That’s perfectly fine.” She reached over to the large file on the desk, the one that had been sent over from Dr. Pete’s office. “Do you mind if I still briefly confirm some facts with you—about the Heat? For my own context.”

He looked at Steve, who shrugged half-heartedly, looking at the stitching on the couch cushions. “Sure.”

“Okay, thank you.” She looked down at the file. “I understand that Bucky’s Heat came earlier than could be prepared for, surprising both of you. Is that part correct?”

“It is,” Bucky confirmed. “We did discuss it beforehand, though. We just thought we had more time to… get ready for it. I guess.”

Dr. Welsh nodded. “I see that you were together the morning when Bucky awoke in Heat, and you in rut, Steve. I understand that the hormonal urges were stronger than either of you had experienced before, which we now understand was likely due to the unprecedented degree of Compatibility. There was some intense discussion about how you would handle the situation—”

“—It was no one’s fault,” Steve interrupted suddenly, his voice low, defensive, and nearly dangerous. The sudden nasty edge in his tone showed nothing of the nervous, shy man that he’d been just a moment ago. “Neither of us saw it coming, and we weren’t ourselves. We did things we wouldn’t have done otherwise.”

“It’s okay, Stevie,” Bucky said softly. “She knows. I know, _we_ know that. We’ve both agreed not to blame ourselves for any of it.” He pet at Steve’s knee, silently encouraging him to return to calm.

Dr. Welsh considered them both carefully for a minute, before leaning back in her chair again and closing the file.

“I think maybe it would be a better use of our time together to talk about your sex life after the Heat,” she said.

Bucky didn’t know if the look on Steve’s face spoke to relief or disappointment: relief because they didn’t have to talk about such a difficult subject anymore, and disappointment in himself because he wasn’t — _they_ weren’t really ready to talk about it in the first place. Regardless, Bucky didn’t want Steve to linger on it. He recaptured his eye contact and took the initiative to resume their exercise.

“You love giving head,” he teased lightly, jumping back in. He felt pleased with himself when Steve sputtered out a shocked laugh, beet red and completely scandalized. “At least, I hope you do, what with how often you’re going after it.”

Steve smiled back, despite himself and the heat on his face. “Yeah,” he said. “You got me there.”

But he left it there— didn’t say anything else, didn’t add more to their game. Bucky’s first instinct was to take the lead again, relieve some of Steve’s discomfort, but he stopped himself this time. If this was going to work, Steve needed to talk. He let the silence settle.

Steve sat and stared at Bucky, reading his encouragement before bringing himself to speak. When he did, it was heartbreakingly quiet and spoken directly to Bucky; eyes wide and apologetic, voice edging on something near to broken.

“The last time we had sex, I couldn’t knot you.”

And there was something so fucking brave about the way he said it, even though Bucky had to fight the urge to correct him— ‘ _not_ couldn’t _, no, just too scared, you are hurt but you are not broken Steve Rogers’—_ that Bucky couldn’t help but fling himself into his strong arms. He stuffed his nose into the side of his neck, inhaling his Alpha deeply and breathing an _I love you_ into his skin on the exhale. Steve held him tightly, gratefully, and let their combined weight sink into the couch. Bucky felt like he might sink right though Steve altogether, pulled down into the Earth’s core by the tremendous gravity of his love for this man.

For a long, long while, the two of them did nothing but hold each other. Bucky waited until Steve was ready, and when he eventually was he pulled back, placing a peck on Bucky’s nose. He gently lifted Bucky off his lap and set him down next to him, clearing his own his throat.

“That’s what I want out of these appointments,” he said to Dr. Welsh. “That’s what I want to fix. For Bucky— for us.”

Dr. Welsh nodded, then looked to Bucky. “How about you?” she asked him. “Is that also what you want?”

He turned back to Steve and placed a hand on his cheek, turning him so that they faced each other only.

“Steve, I just need you to know… I would— I would love you even if you _never_ knotted me again. I love the man you are now, the Alpha you are. I would love you if we weren’t Compatible, or if you were a Beta, or an Omega.”

“But I _am_ an Alpha, Buck. And I want to be able to give you everything that I should.”

“You already _do_ ,” Bucky urged. “Just by being you, by loving me the way that you do. What I want from this is for you to feel whole. With yourself. Whatever that needs to mean. I don’t want you to feel like this is something you have to try and fix for me.”

Steve looked down at their joined hands. “What if this is something I want to fix for _us_ , then?”

“Okay,” Bucky smiled. “Yeah. For us. But we’re in this _together_ , okay?”

Steve returned the smile and pulled him in for a chaste kiss. When they parted, he looked over to Dr. Welsh, who was finishing up with making a note in her file. She put her pen down and looked up at the clock.

“We’ve got about half an hour left together,” she said. “Do you feel comfortable talking more about this subject today?”

“Please,” Steve said, settling back into the couch and facing the doctor.

“You said that the last time you had sex was when this issue arose. Does that mean it hadn’t come up before?”

Bucky didn’t miss the blush that flared over Steve’s cheekbones once more. “We hadn’t actually had… intercourse— since the Heat,”

“I see,” she said, making another note. “Is that something you were thinking about, this last time you and Bucky were together? About the way you had acted during the Heat?”

“You mean the way I lost control,” Steve replied, voice eerily cold. He’d clearly noticed the way Dr. Welsh was dancing around the subject; they had never fully gotten to talking about Steve’s rut earlier, but he knew that _she_ knew everything from Dr. Pete’s file.

“That’s right,” she replied cooly, everything about her professional and calm in the face of Steve’s defensiveness— but not without empathy. “I understand you came close to placing a mating bite on Bucky when he was in Heat, but that you were ultimately able to resist. Is that something you were thinking about the last time you were together?”

Steve’s head moved in a way that was somehow both a shake and a nod. He looked Bucky in the eyes, speaking directly to him.

“No, not—not at first. Not at all, really, until…” Steve’s eyes fell to his lap. Bucky squeezed his hand.

“Until you started to feel the knot?” Bucky supplied.

Steve nodded. “I was so wrapped up in just _being_ with you, Buck. It’s like I forgot for a minute that…” Steve took a deep breath through his nose, blushing already. “… That _knotting_ was a part of sex. I sort of forgot that was going to happen until it was already happening.”

“When it did start to _happen_ ,” Dr. Welsh began, and Bucky was grateful for the small kindness of using the polite phrasing for Steve’s comfort, “where did your thoughts go? Did you find yourself thinking about unwelcome things?”

“Yes,” Steve replied, softly, his gaze fixed on their joined hands.

“Okay,” Dr. Welsh nodded. “Can you share with us a little about what those thoughts were?”

“It was— it was everything you just said." His jaw was so tense. “One minute, I was focused on nothing but these amazing feelings, and then suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about the person— the _other_ Alpha I had turned into. When I was in rut. I felt like he was there in the room with us, _watching_ us.” His voice grew more quiet. “Watching Bucky.”

Bucky thought that hearing Steve's words would have made him shiver.

“And that scared you?” Dr. Welsh asked.

Steve nodded once, stiff. Dr. Welsh returned the nod thoughtfully and continued.

“Thank you for telling us that, Steve. I’m going to ask you something, and I need you to be completely honest with me— and with Bucky.” Steve began to straighten into a defensive stance before seeming to catch himself, softening purposely. “When you were experiencing those thoughts and feelings, did you ever start to feel any of those primal urges again? Did you feel like you needed to bite him, or that you needed—”

“ _No_ ,” Steve answered her, voice so low and cold that Bucky _did_ shiver.

“Stevie, it’s okay, we’re just talking, no one is trying to accuse you of anything. Even if you _did_ feel that—”

Steve cut him off, looking Bucky in the eyes sternly as he repeated himself. “ _No._ I didn’t feel those things _,_ I swear it, Buck.”

The tension radiating off of Steve continued to hang heavy in the room, but it didn’t seem to deter Dr. Welsh. “I want to explore that sentiment a little for a moment,” she said. “What I’m hearing from you is that you consider the primal side of you that emerged during your rut to be someone _different_ from you; almost separate from you. Am I understanding that right?”

Steve’s face shifted from defensive to that of a wounded animal. “Of _course_ ,” he responded with ferocity, firm lines set his forehead. “That’s what I’m trying to say, I would _never_ try to hurt Bucky like that— even _think_ about it— if I’m in control of my behavior—”

“I’m sorry if my question offended,” Dr. Welsh interrupted, hands just barely held up in the air as though offering a gesture of surrender. “I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m only asking to try and understand your mental framework better. If these sessions are going to work, I need to understand how you see yourself.”

Steve regarded her for a moment and then settled back in his seat. He nodded silently for her to continue.

“You say you felt like this… other Alpha— this _primal_ Alpha— was in the room with you. But you also say you still felt confident that you were in control of your actions. If you weren’t afraid of losing that control, what about his perceived presence frightened you?”

“It’s… difficult. To explain.”

“Try us. Start with trying to describe what exactly it is about this other Alpha that frightens you.”

“Look, I….” Steve started, frustrated with himself and struggling for the words. When he finally found a way to string them together, it wasn’t at all what Bucky expected. “When— when I flew that plane into the ocean, I was 27 years old. And… and then it was like blinking and I woke up— _seventy years_ later—and the world had changed in more ways than I can wrap my head around, even now. There had been all these other wars, and the world map looked nothing like it had in 1945, and America had dropped atomic _bombs_ on innocent people, for god’s sake. And I woke up, and all of that had happened, and I was _still_ 27 years old.”

Bucky couldn’t keep his hands away from Steve. He wanted to wrap him up in his arms completely, let Steve bury his nose in Bucky’s neck the way Steve liked, but that was an intimacy for when there wasn’t another person in the room. He settled for running a palm up and down Steve’s spine, willing him to continue.

“When I lost my head during the rut, when I became that _primal_ Alpha and he had all the control, and then I woke up and saw… _god_ , it was like coming out of the ice all over again. Worse. That feeling— it’s like walking down the stairs and skipping a step, or— or thinking there was going to be another step at the top but then your foot falls through the air. And on top of it all, it put Bucky in danger. I know it may not be rational, but just thinking about the fact that this other Alpha is still somewhere inside my body? Just waiting for the opportunity to take control again? I…” He trailed off with a tired sigh, placing his head in his hands.

“ _Do_ you have a fear that it might take control again?” Dr. Welsh asked.

Steve shrugged stiffly, looking down at his hands. “All the doctors say that it won’t happen again like that.” He sounded like he was talking more to himself than to Dr. Welsh.

“I understand. But that’s not what I asked, Steve. Do you live with a fear that it _could_ happen?”

Bucky watched him look from the doctor and back to the floor, hand rubbing over the back of his skull like he couldn’t keep still while answering the question. “Look… that Heat wasn’t just the first time I knotted Bucky. It was the first time— the _only_ time I’ve done that with anybody at all. So when I think about doing that again, the only point of reference I have is what happened when I was in rut, and based on that experience alone, it just feels like...” Steve trailed off again, breathing in deep. “I know objectively that this isn’t true, but last time— in the moment— it felt like the only purpose of knotting was to keep Bucky _trapped_ , tied to me while this other Alpha tries to push something on Bucky that he doesn’t want…”

And Bucky wanted to _scream_ at him, yell at the top of his lungs that he _did_ want that, just wasn’t ready to tell him, didn’t think _Steve_ was ready— but no, he kept his silence.

“So I guess I don’t know if I’m afraid of actually losing control— of _him_ taking over.Again.” Steve’s jaw set a hard line to frame his features. “But I’m damn well afraid of giving him an opportunity to try.”

On Dr. Welsh’s desk, a discreet timer Bucky hadn’t noticed before buzzed quietly against the hardwood. She quickly shut it off and looked to the clock.

“Thank you, Steve. We’ve only about five minutes left today, but I’m really happy with the progress we’ve made.”

Steve quirked an eyebrow. “You… You think we’ve made progress already?”

“Of course,” she smiled. “Anytime you’re putting your feelings into words is progress to me. In fact, I have a homework assignment for the two of you.”

Bucky and Steve exchanged a look of interest. The doctor closed her notebook and her files, pushing everything aside.

“Here’s what I think. Dr. Harlow told me that you were a very unique couple, and after meeting you and talking with you today, I’m inclined to agree. But I think that— as incredible and truly special as your biological Compatibility is— you’ve also been robbed by that same biology, in a sense.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

“The two of you shared a kind of trauma together during the Heat,” she continued, “which likely would not have happened if not for the extremely high measure of Compatibility. I hesitate to use the term ‘trauma’, because I don’t believe there were any true aggressors or victims, but there was certainly a very real element of emotional fallout. Moreover, I think you both are still feeling tethered to certain issues associated with your Compatibility.”

Steve frowned. “But I love that we’re Compatible,” he said. Bucky gave his hand another loving squeeze.

“Of course,” she said, “I absolutely agree that it’s something to be treasured. You’re a lucky couple to have found each other. But I also think you’re feeling a sense of pressure from knowing exactly _how_ special you are together, and I think that pressure may be preventing you from fully giving yourselves over to each other.”

And…. And neither Bucky nor Steve had anything to say to that. To Bucky, it made sense. He’d meant what he’d said earlier; he would still love Steve just as much if they weren’t Compatible at all. But they _were_ , more than perhaps any other couple in the world, and that… that was both exciting and scary information to live with.

“So I’d like to see you back here in about six weeks,” Dr. Welsh continued. “Until then, your homework assignment is to just focus on being together. Experience the normalcies of being in a relationship. Keep that same dynamic you had together before the Heat— in and out of the bedroom. Don’t set any expectations for yourself, for each other, for the relationship, or for your sex life.”

Steve shifted in his seat. “So should we keep trying to—”

“—To knot?” Dr. Welsh finished. Steve nodded. “Not unless it comes to you completely naturally, and feels right to both of you. Don’t try and force it, and most of all, don’t worry yourself about it. Sex may have been just a biological imperative for our ancestors, but for us, sex should be intimate and _fun_ ,” she smirked. “So... have fun, together.”

—

They exited their therapist’s office to find the streets of Brooklyn glistening with the wet glow of misty November sleet. Bucky felt every bit of the two emotional hours that had just passed, and from the look of Steve’s shoulders, so did he. The man looked utterly beaten.

Bucky nearly slipped on a patch of fast-forming ice on the sidewalk, but Steve caught him easily.

“Roads might be too slushy,” Steve said, eyes cast down at the sidewalk. “Let’s take a cab.”

They had taken Steve’s motorcycle from the office, where they’d both left early in better weather. For Bucky, he had the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving. Steve, on the other hand, had gone to the Tower that morning to finish up his final tasks before he would be taking off for more than two whole months— Thanksgiving until the beginning of February. Bucky was also planning some time off and would be joining him for two weeks, starting in the middle of December until the New Year.

Bucky knew that Steve wasn’t actually worried about driving the roads; he was just pretending for Bucky’s benefit, understanding that Bucky was still getting comfortable with being on a motorcycle, not wanting to make him any more nervous. Bucky appreciated the thought, but found himself more driven by other concerns at the moment— like his desire to see Steve in a situation where he could feel confident again, powerful.

“No!” Bucky spluttered. “We can take the bike. That way we won’t have to come back for it.” He shrugged. “Besides, I know _you_ won’t actually have any problems driving safely.”

Steve arched a questioning eyebrow at him, confused. “You sure you’re okay with that?"

Bucky nodded and gave Steve what he hoped was an encouraging smile, before grabbing his hand and walking them over to the spot where Steve had parked. Steve gave him one more wary look before shrugging and mounting the bike, grabbing Bucky’s helmet for him and motioning for him to climb on. As the engine roared to life, Bucky wrapped his arms snug around Steve and rested his chin against the back of Steve’s shoulder. Steve peeled off the curve on the street, every bit as controlled as Bucky knew he would be, and began to skillfully work his way through Brooklyn afternoon traffic.

Each time Steve would effortlessly maneuver the motorcycle around some thin patch of ice— most of which Bucky himself never noticed until after they passed it— Bucky would squeeze his arms tighter around Steve’s trunk and close his eyes; not out of fear, but to focus and try to channel a particular set of emotions through his body heat, or maybe through his scent. He couldn’t put a name to what it was he was trying to convey, but it seemed to work nonetheless. With each block they got closer to home, with each easy display of skill and competence that Bucky’s driver put out, Steve’s spine straightened a little more.

—

“You’re free for two months,” Bucky mused, chopping up the raw pecans scattered across his cutting board. He was prepping to bake the pie that he would take to Becca’s house in two days for Thanksgiving, where Steve would also be meeting Bucky’s parents for the first time. “What are you going to do with all that spare time? I won’t be off for another couple of weeks.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Steve said, getting up from the where he had been seated at the kitchen table looking at something on his tablet. He walked over to the kitchen island where Bucky was busy chopping. “I’m thinking about taking on a project. Here, at home.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Been thinking about it for a while actually. It was sort of the the main reason I asked Tony to buy this apartment building.”

Bucky bristled at the mention, but his attention was piqued. “And what reason was that, exactly?”

Steve smiled and shrugged, picking up a pecan and popping it into his mouth. “I thought you and I could use a bigger living space.”

Bucky frowned, confused. “Okay, while I do agree, I don’t totally understand. Why would you buy this building and all its tiny ass apartments if you wanted us to move to a bigger place?”

“Because I don’t want us to move to a bigger place,” Steve said. “I want us to _have_ a bigger place.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Right around the time I moved in, the neighbor you shared a wall with moved out.” Steve gestured to the long wall in the living room, opposite the kitchen and bedroom. “So I thought… maybe we could expand?”

Bucky set down the knife and took a moment to process what Steve was implying. “But all the units on this floor have the same floor plan,” he began, before the understanding suddenly dawned on him. “Wait— you want to knock down the wall separating the two apartments?”

Steve flashed Bucky his most charming, handsome smile.

“If you’re okay with it, then yes. That’s what I’d like to do.”

Bucky was dumbfounded by the idea, but also… _excited_? He was still definitely miffed that Steve (or Tony— he was still a little mixed up about that one) had bought the building without even consulting him, but the idea that Steve had done it not only to keep Bucky from paying rent, but also to… what? Make more of a _home_ for the two of them?

“So is that why I’ve never seen anyone showing the empty unit?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I asked Tony to make sure the building managers don’t list it. I wanted it to stay empty until I was ready to ask you about this.”

Bucky blinked. “So, what? You’ll knock down that wall and we’ll suddenly have twice the apartment?”

Steve grinned excitedly and walked backwards across the apartment, facing Bucky and gesturing all around him.

“Not just that wall. Once we have twice the space, I want to work the whole thing over. I want to expand our bedroom, bathroom, kitchen— everything. We can keep the extra bedroom for guests, or—” he inexplicably shot a quick, nervous glance at the ground, “— for whomever. The other bathroom will be for guests, and we can turn our bedroom and bathroom into a _real_ master suite—”

“—This is a _huge_ project you’re talking about, Steve!”

“I know. That’s why I want to do it.” He shrugged. “I like working with my hands.”

“ _Your_ hands?!”

“Yeah. I was, uh. I was planning on doing most of it myself, actually.” Steve walked back over to Bucky, close enough for him to spot the faintest tinge of blush gracing Steve’s cheeks. “I have some time off, and I want a project to focus on. And besides, you _love_ this apartment.” He lifted one of Bucky’s hands to his lips and gave it a chaste kiss. “I want to build a lasting home for us here. If you’ll let me.”

Bucky smiled demurely. He could feel himself being easily talked in to being on board with Steve’s big plan.

“Since when are you a master builder?” Bucky teased, earning a laugh from Steve.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to have the experts do the electric and plumbing. And Tony has been helping me with the planning, to make sure I don’t totally remove anything load-bearing, and I’m also dating this really hot engineer that might be able to consult… But yeah,” Steve lowered his voice, the gleam of mischief apparent in his eyes. “…I’ve been told I’m actually pretty good with my hands.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “That so?”

“Yep. So…” He looked and Bucky and wrung his hands together, smiling a little nervously. “What do you say, beautiful?”

Bucky took a moment to consider Steve’s proposition. He wasn’t wrong at all about their current space being too small for both of them, especially long-term. The novelty of living together might have them mostly too distracted now to care much, but after awhile, Bucky knew it would start to feel cramped. And Steve was also right in that Bucky loved his apartment; it was the first thing he ever really could call his own after he graduated college and entered ‘the real world’. His love for his apartment was only multiplied by getting to share it with Steve, so wouldn’t it follow that it would be made even _better_ by Steve molding the bones of it to make a special and unique place, just for them?

Bucky strode across the living room to the wall dividing the two units, hand pressed to his chin, pretending to be deep in consideration.

“So you’ll probably be lifting a lot of heavy things, huh? Knocking out walls and stuff with your bare hands?”

Steve grinned, ear to ear. “Absolutely.”

“And it’ll probably get pretty hot in here, even in the winter. I’m sure you’ll have to do most of the work shirtless.”

“No way around it, I’m afraid.”

“And when our huge master bedroom is done, you’ll buy us a big, king-sized bed and throw me down on it?”

“California King. And I’m never gonna let you out of it.”

Bucky turned back to Steve and sauntered over to him until they were nearly pressed together and he was looking up at his boyfriend (and _god_ , he didn’t think the day would come when he no longer got off on how Steve towered over him).

“Okay, big guy,” he whispered. “When do you start?”

Steve grinned and put his hands on Bucky’s lower back, pulling their hips together. “Already got all the proper permits. I can get this pesky wall knocked out this weekend.” He leaned down and planted a kiss on Bucky’s full lips; it was closed-mouth, but incredibly sensual.

“Mm,” Bucky hummed against his lips, “sounds like a plan.”

He wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and deepened the kiss, before nipping at Steve’s lower lip playfully and causing Steve to let out the tiniest gasp.

“You make a man wanna do selfish things, Buck,” Steve said, pulling away. The playful warning was evident in his tone, and Bucky soon felt two big hands sliding down to cover his ass.

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

Steve pulled back from the kiss and pushed their foreheads together. “Like maybe bending your sweet little body in half on that kitchen table and taking what I want.” Steve’s eyes on him were full of blistering heat but his voice was low, quiet, like it was a secret that he knew he shouldn’t share but just couldn’t help himself.

And _fuck_ , did Bucky love his boyfriend’s nasty mouth.

“That doesn’t sound like it has to be so selfish. I’m sure you can find a way to make it good for me, too.”

The thick scent of Steve’s arousal hung heavy in the room now, smoky and unmistakable. He watched as Steve flicked his eyes down to Bucky’s mouth for a long minute before smashing their lips together again. He began licking into Bucky’s mouth almost aggressively but with careful precision, like he was trying to taste him. His hands lowered from Bucky’s ass to the back of his thighs, squeezing and lifting, and Bucky followed the lead; he wrapped his legs around Steve’s waist and let his super soldier carry him to the kitchen table. Their mouths never parted.

When they reached the table Steve held Bucky’s weight to him easily with one arm while he used his other hand to set aside anything on top of it— his tablet from earlier, a set of salt and pepper shakers. Bucky laughed when Steve accidentally knocked over the salt shaker, only to scoop up the escaped salt and throw it over his shoulder in a dorky show of superstition. After the table was finally clear, Steve wasted no time setting him down on it and pulling off Bucky’s pants. Laser-focused, they both made quick work of at least most of each other’s clothes; Bucky wasn’t able to get Steve’s jeans and underwear down past his thighs before he got distracted by Steve’s rough palm stroking his dick.

Five minutes later found Bucky sprawled obscenely across the table with three of Steve’s thick fingers buried inside him, a fourth pressing at his rim. An oddly endearing red splotchiness covered Steve’s chest and neck, peeking out from underneath his beard, the only indication that he was feeling anywhere near as wrecked as Bucky already was. Every breathy moan that Bucky let slip seemed to deepen the predatory look on Steve’s face. By the time he pushed in the fourth finger, Steve was grinning wickedly and beginning to growl somewhere low in his chest.

“Please,” Bucky rasped out. “Please, Steve, I’m ready. Fuck me.”

Steve thrusted in his fingers a few more times, sliding against Bucky’s prostate once more to tease before pulling them out completely. His two enormous hands wrapped around Bucky’s hips and pulled him so that his ass was hanging off the edge of the table. After giving his own cock a few sure strokes, hand covered in Bucky’s natural slick, he looked up at Bucky and cocked an eyebrow, silently requesting confirmation. Bucky nodded fervently, and Steve lined himself up and began to push.

“ _God_ , baby,” he groaned, watching as the head struggled to slip past Bucky’s rim and into his slick heat. “I still can’t believe you let me into your body like this.”

“ _Let_ you?” Bucky choked out with a strained laugh. “You got me begging you for it.”

Steve went slow as he sank into Bucky, and it was good, but it was _maddening_. The stretch burned but it was perfect and it was everything Bucky craved whenever he looked at Steve’s monster dick. Once he was fully seated Steve took a moment to gather himself, before silently checking in with Bucky that it was okay to move.

He gave a few warm-up thrusts for them both, just shallow things, before deciding to make good on his promise from earlier. Steve pressed Bucky’s thighs into his chest, bending him almost completely in half. “Hold them,” he ordered, and Bucky obeyed without question, slipping his hands under his knees and tugging his legs inward like Steve had asked.

“Oh fuck!” Bucky cried in shock when Steve began to _fuck_ him. The delicious way that the position rearranged half of Bucky’s insides meant that the top side of Steve’s rock-hard shaft rubbed bruisingly against Bucky’s prostate with each pass. Whenever Bucky would start to think that the stimulation was almost too much, Steve would suddenly change up his angle and Bucky would find himself missing it, until he returned. “Ngh, feels so _good_ , Steve.”

Steve grunted his agreement. A bead of sweat rolled off his forehead and landed on Bucky’s nipple, making his gasp at the sensation. The force of Steve’s thrusts normally would have had Bucky worried about the structural integrity of the table, until he realized that very little of his own weight was even resting _against_ the table; Steve’s effortless strength and sure hands on his hips were keeping Bucky’s body practically suspended, not an inch above the table’s surface, and _fuck_ was that doing it for Bucky.

After several blindingly pleasurable moments spent reaming Bucky through near to hollow, Steve suddenly slowed his pace and bent to press their foreheads together, grinding down into Bucky’s body almost lazily.

“Hey Buck,” he said, mouth curving up slyly. “You sure you’re good with me knocking down that wall this weekend?”

“I _know_ you are not talking home improvement projects with your cock in my ass, Rogers.”

“Just checking,” he teased, nipping at Bucky’s ear. “‘Cause I was thinking that you and me might go over there right now and give that wall a proper send off.”

Steve moved his head down and licked a filthy stripe from Bucky’s neck up along the side of his face, and Bucky didn’t know what exactly had gotten into him today, but he wanted it _every_ damn day from now on.

“Yeah?” Bucky asked, voice gravelly. _Oh, fuck me._ “What exactly did you have in mind?”

And then Bucky was being lifted again and carried across the apartment, Steve making a beeline to the wall in question, his thick cock tucked snugly inside Bucky the entire way. It wasn’t as smooth as it could have been, due mostly to the way Steve’s jeans were still hanging around his knees, and in the back of his mind Bucky winced to think of the way they were probably dripping slick across the linoleum.

The wall texture was the perfect amount of rough against the skin of Bucky’s back when his boyfriend pressed him against it. He wasted no time wrapping his legs around Steve’s narrow waist and his arms around Steve’s neck, pulling him that much closer and deeper into Bucky’s body.

Steve groaned and splayed his wide hands across Bucky’s ass, cupping and squeezing and using the grip to drag Bucky up and down on his cock. He was holding Bucky up like he weighed absolutely nothing, and that realization alone made Bucky whimper, pathetically turned-on.

“You like this?” Steve breathed. Bucky could only choke out another whine. “Yeah, you like this. Don’t think I don't notice how flustered you get when I manhandle you wherever I want you.” He flashed Bucky a wicked smile, _knowing_ what this was doing to him. “I could hold you up for _days_ and fuck you, angel. Huh, you think about that? I wouldn’t even break a sweat.”

Bucky felt like he was combusting from the inside out, didn't have a hope in the world of stopping the deafening moan that Steve's words ripped from him. Steve just returned his mouth to Bucky’s and swallowed the sound as he worked on getting a rhythm going once again. Bucky’s own dick was leaking and bumping up against Steve’s washboard abs with every bounce.

But fuck, wall sex was _incredible_ , and it wasn’t long before Bucky could feel his orgasm approaching. He could absolutely come untouched, he knew he could, might even have to struggle not to, but his dick had been neglected ever since Steve starting fucking him on the table, and he was itching to wrap his hand around it.

Eyes closed into their wet, open-mouthed kiss, Steve must have known Bucky’s intentions upon feeling his left arm let go and move down his body. In an impressively swift series of movements, Steve shifted all of Bucky’s weight to rest on one arm while he used his other hand to catch Bucky’s metal-grafted wrist midair, firmly, but with no less than the exact amount of pressure Bucky knew Steve intended. He pulled his mouth away and looked Bucky in the eyes.

“Tell me how much you want this,” he demanded— gaze fierce, expression attentive, voice wrecked and raw but never more teeming with authority. Bucky felt like he might come then and there. “Tell me and I’ll make you come, babydoll.”

“ _Fuck_ , Steve,” Bucky choked. “Love it. _God_ , I love it, _want_ it. Want you in me all the time, want it _so_ fucking bad. Didn’t know I could ever want anything this much— oh, fuck!”

Steve let go of Bucky’s wrist and wrapped his huge hand around Bucky’s dick, and then all it took was one, two, three skillful pulls before Bucky was shooting come all over Steve’s fist. It felt like his orgasm lasted forever, lost in a white-out cloud of pressure and euphoria and whole-body spasms, clenching all up and down the length of Steve inside him.

As he began to come down from the peak of it he managed to open his eyes, and what he saw was Steve looking at him with the most awestruck expression he’d ever seen on the man; bowled over but tender, and frayed at the edges, his own growing ecstasy writ deep into the lines of his face. “ _Fuck_ ,” Steve swore, “I will never get tired of how it feels when you’re coming on my cock.”

Bucky felt shaky without actually shaking at all, and while he would have liked to respond with something sexy or witty he found that he could only produce pathetic, blissed-out whining noises, which seemed to spur Steve on. To his delight his boyfriend had never stopped fucking him, during or even after Bucky’s orgasm, and was now devoted to chasing his own pleasure. Bucky fucking _lived_ for it.

“Ngh, yeah,” Bucky managed. “Fuck me so _good_ , Stevie.”

Looking back later on the moment when Steve finally came, Bucky would be glad that his own mind was still far too scrambled to worry about where Steve’s head was at that moment— if he would follow Dr. Welsh’s advice and not concern himself with whether or not he was going be able to knot, or if he would enter a silent panic the way he had done the last time they were together. But since Bucky’s mind was nearly as wrecked as his ass, he did not think anything of it one way or another when Steve moved the come-soaked hand that had been been milking Bucky’s dick to wrap around the base of his own shaft, the rest of his cock still buried inside. The Alpha growled out a broken rendition of Bucky’s name as his orgasm was seemingly ripped out of him, knotting his own fist as he blissfully fucked his hot, milky come into Bucky’s waiting body.

Afterwards— some time afterwards— the showering was easy; cleaning the apartment was an absolute _bitch_. But Steve did it with a happy little smile on his face and wet, freshly-shampooed hair, wiping down the wall and the table and floors while Bucky finished preparing his pecan pie.

The smile was still on Steve’s face later that night when he wrapped Bucky up in blankets on their bed, before sneaking his own body beneath the covers and giving Bucky the blowjob of his _life_.

—

While Bucky’s parents lived far away in Indiana, where they had moved after Bucky went off to college, Becca and her husband lived just on the other side of Brooklyn. Still, with both of their busy lives, Bucky didn’t get to see her as often as either of them would have liked, so when Thursday rolled around and he was plastered to Steve’s back as they rode across town to Becca’s house Bucky found himself buzzing with more than just the vibrations of the motorcycle. He was excited to see all of his family together, which so rarely happened, but he was also nervous as hell to introduce Steve to his parents for the first time.

Bucky gestured to Becca’s house as it came into view and Steve pulled the bike into the driveway. Becca was already outside as they parked, apparently taking out the trash. Steve set the kickstand and turned off the bike.

“You really carry a pie on that thing?” Becca asked, watching Steve help Bucky on the dismount.

Once off the bike, Bucky worked to unfasten the side-carrier. “You know, I wasn’t really confident until this exact moment that it was going to survive a cross-city trip on a motorcycle.”

He smiled and wrapped his sister in a tight hug, before Becca turned to do the same to Steve.

“It’s good to see you, Steve. Did Bucky warn you about dad?”

Bucky groaned and rubbed his face in his palm. The warning that Becca was referring to was a necessary one, and he had given it to Steve the day before. As Bucky’s luck would have it, George Barnes—their father and their Omega parent—had been positively _obsessed_ with Captain America and the Howling Commandoes since he was a small child.

“Yeah, I warned him,” Bucky moaned. “Please tell me you talked to dad already? Like I asked?”

“Asked? You _begged_ , Bucky,” Becca teased. “But yes. Mom and I both told him he had to keep his cool. It took some wrangling, but he agreed to be limited to only three questions about the Howlies during dinner.”

“What about _before_ and _after_ dinner?”

Steve just laughed. “I really don’t mind, Buck. I keep telling you.”

“Yeah, well, you say that now. You don’t know him yet.”

Steve grinned and shook his head as Becca let them inside. The house smelled _incredible_. Every possible scent that Bucky associated with Thanksgiving was mingling in his nose: the turkey and dressing, the cheddar mashed potatoes, the cranberry sauce. He grabbed Steve’s hand and walked with Becca towards the kitchen. 

When they walked in their mother was busy basting the turkey. Upon seeing Bucky and Steve she quickly set down her tools and wiped her hands on her apron, beaming as she made a beeline right past Bucky for Steve.

“Oh, Steve honey! Come here and give me a hug!”

“Mom, please don’t smother my boyfriend,” Bucky grumbled. He knew from hearing about several bad fan-related incidents that Steve, while ever the polite gentleman, was generally not comfortable with too much physical contact with people he’d only just met. This was why Bucky found himself surprised when Steve—in an uncharacteristic move—enthusiastically obliged Winnifred Barnes’s request and allowed himself to be wrapped in what Bucky knew to be one of the tightest hugs imaginable. He looked to be giving as good as he was getting.

“Mrs. Barnes,” Steve greeted with his chin atop her shoulder. He was smiling ear-to-ear.

“Oh, none of that,” his mother replied as she pulled away and squeezed Steve’s shoulder affectionately. “Call me Winnie.”

She finally turned to Bucky to hug him, scenting him lightly and affectionately as Alpha parents often did.

“Happy Thanksgiving, mom. Where’s Dad?”

She pulled back with a smile and took the pie from Bucky. “Oh, he’s on the back porch, nursing his bourbon. Can I get you anything to drink, Steve? A glass of red, maybe?”

“That would be lovely, ma’am. Thank you.”

Once they were both settled with their drinks and Bucky had checked to see if there was anything they could help with in the kitchen, he led Steve to the back porch, fingers crossed that his father would behave in the presence of his favorite celebrity solider. They found him with Becca’s husband Alexei sipping their drinks and occasionally tossing the ball for Alexei’s enormous dog, Peanut.

“Hey dad, hey Alexei,” Bucky announced their presence. Both men swung their heads around, and Bucky almost laughed at the hilarious sequence of expressions that crossed his father’s face: excitement, then panic, and finally a determined ‘keep your cool’ look that he was not exactly pulling off.

“Bucky,” George smiled. “Come give us a hug and introduce us to your new beau!”

Bucky hugged his father and greeted Alexei— careful to not quite hug him, since it was only the first time Steve was meeting him and there were certain social faux pas when it came to non-familial Alphas around your own Alpha mate, at least until they were comfortable with each other— and gestured for Steve to come over.

“Steve, this is Becca’s husband Alexei and my dad, George.”

Steve smiled and gave both men a firm but easy hand shake. Bucky noticed that his dad— eyes practically glazed over— held on a little longer than was probably entirely necessary.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Captain,” his dad said. Bucky could tell he was trying very hard not to salute.

“It’s just Steve, please,” his boyfriend replied. “It’s honor to meet you, too, sir. Bucky’s told me so much about you.”

George shot Bucky a nervous little look as though to say, _‘You didn’t say anything embarrassing about me to Captain America, did you?’_ Bucky just grinned and shook his head.

They settled down together and enjoyed their drinks on the back porch. Bucky was pleased to see Steve looking remarkably comfortable, even when his dad got a little too fan boy-ish with his conversation. Alexei and Steve hit it off almost immediately, which didn’t surprise Bucky; they had similar senses of humor, and Alexei was the kind of person that could put anybody at ease and make them feel like a life-long friend. Becca had done well in finding her mate.

Steve seemed to genuinely not mind that George had so many questions about the Howlies (although, to his father’s credit, he did seem to be dialing it back a few notches). At first, Steve’s easy-going attitude about it confused Bucky. He asked him about it when they got up so that Bucky could show Steve where the powder room was.

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess it just doesn’t bother me with certain people.”

“Really? I mean, I’m glad you feel so comfortable with my dad— but you just met him?”

“Yeah, sure.” Steve stopped Bucky in the privacy of the hallway and gathered him up in his arms for a kiss. He pulled back with a tender smile on his face. “But he’s your dad, Buck. And it’s not like he’s asked me anything overly personal, and he’s so… sincere about it. I kinda just feel lucky we have that common interest.”

“Ugh, how are you so perfect all the time,” Bucky mumbled; he meant it. Steve just winked at him. Bucky leaned up to grab another kiss, then pulled away and pointed down the hall. “Bathroom’s on the left. I’m going to go help my mom and Becca in the kitchen.”

Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful, as it always was at the Barnes house. Bucky knew he was lucky to have a family that he truly loved, and who loved him— and that he could stand to be around, most days. Much to Bucky’s horror, his dad got way too comfortable after a few more drinks and decided to tell Steve stories of his own— specifically, childhood stories about _Bucky_. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Steve laugh as hard as he did when George describedthe time that nine year-old Bucky programmed his Furby toy to say his name, then put it in his bedroom closet and forgot about it for over a year— until _ten_ year-old Bucky wound up screaming and wetting his pants after he pulled down a shelf and the abandoned toy began bellowing out his name like a haunted Chucky doll, voice like Satan due to the low battery. (And maybe Bucky laughed a little, too.)

After dinner his mother asked Steve to help to dry and put away dishes on the high shelves while Bucky and Becca stayed back to clear off the table.Becca got side-tracked cleaning up a cranberry sauce stain on the rug, so Bucky stacked the dirty plates and headed towards the kitchen. He could clearly hear the two voices inside as he approached, and something inside him made Bucky silently stop short just outside the door. With no small amount of guilt, he quietly leaned in the door frame and listened to the exchange.

“What you do is dangerous work, Steve,” Winnie said, her tone matter-of-fact despite the sing-song voice.

“Yes, ma’am. It is.”

“Do you ever think about where my Bucky fits into that?”

“Every day,” Steve answered soberly. He paused for a long moment before continuing. “I think about that every single day. Keeps me up, some nights. Thinking about this job, the targets I have on my back— how Bucky is in danger every day just because of who he is to me. Wondering if I’m being selfish by asking him to be with me.”

“And do you think that you are? Being selfish.” His mother’s voice lacked accusation, more closely resembling a sort of genuine curiosity.

“I am,” Steve answered, this time without pause. “I know I am. And to your family, I’m sorry for that. Truly. But… I won’t be without him.” The clinking of dishes stopped, and Bucky wished he could see his mother’s face. “If all it would mean to keep him safe— away from me— was that I had to contend with my own heartache, I’d do it in a second. I’d stay away to keep him safe.”

Bucky's heart began to race and throb in his chest.

“But that isn’t all it would mean. Is it?” Bucky could almost hear his mother’s knowing smile.

“No ma’am, it’s not. I don’t think I’ll ever know what I did to deserve your son’s love, but somehow, Bucky’s given it to me. And I can’t do that to him— betray that love, hurt him by keeping us apart.”

Someone turned off the faucet, and for awhile no one spoke at all. Just as Bucky began to fear his hidden presence had been noticed, he heard his mother’s voice again with the ever-confident, faintly bemused tone in which she almost always spoke.

“My children are two of the most clever, whip-smart people on this planet. Do you know that, Steve?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. There was the hint of a grin evident in his voice. “It may be the thing I love most about Bucky.”

He heard his mother hum thoughtfully, then continue. “My daughter did two tours in Afghanistan, leading covert operations so dangerous and important that she’ll never be able to tell her own family what she was doing over there. And my Bucky? At twenty years old he saved himself and five other interns from a burning building, eighty floors up, while aliens invaded Manhattan. Escaped unharmed save for his burnt arm. And to that? It was less than a month before he was back in the lab, approaching the greatest engineer in the world with the wild idea to build himself new _skin_. And now he goes back to work in that very same building every day, knowing that the biggest bullseye target in the world is hanging over his head in the shape of a big, gaudy ‘A’.”

Bucky wished for a moment that he could see Steve’s face. Truthfully, Bucky had never told him the complete story of how he escaped the building fire at then-Stark Tower during the Chitauri invasion, or how the idea to use nanobots to build prosthetic skin from vibranium had originated with him (although Tony had actually engineered it). Bucky wondered how much of the story Tony had shared with Steve when Bucky was not around.

“My children may not be able to lift a schoolbus,” Winnie continued, “but that doesn’t mean they do not have super powers of their own. Bucky is a _survivor_ , Steve— by his own merit, and not by accident. It may scare the shit out of me and Georgie, but we know that if something were to happen, our son would find a way to handle himself.”

Somewhere, there was an attempt to muffle a wet little sniffle. Bucky did not know where, or who.

“Thank you,” Steve spoke eventually. “For reminding me of what I already knew. The fears that grow in me every time I think about what could happen, I just...” He paused to collect himself, clear his throat. “I needed to hear that. Thank you, Winnie.”

“I’m just happy to hear I don’t have to kick your ass for needlessly breaking his heart.”

The bark of Steve’s surprised laughter was then followed by the thoughtful silence of a wordless measure, before his mother spoke again— this time in an uncharacteristically sober tone.

“I understand, you know,” she told Steve. “That urge to protect, provide. To care for someone, when you’ve found your mate. It takes time to work that out; time and practice. Reconciling the things you feel like you need with the things you know you truly want— for yourself, and for him. Omegas are better at that than us. I guess we brutes tend to struggle with it.”

Steve chuckled, but the laughter was almost hollow “Yeah,” he said, “I don’t think Bucky has much of that problem. He seems to always be comfortable with what he wants. With his instincts.”

“Mm,” Winnie hummed in response. “You know, George once said something to me that I think about a lot. He told me that Omegas spend most of their lives before they find a mate knowing what it is to _need._ They have heats, and it’s perfectly bearable for most, but until they have a mate to share them with that feeling of need doesn’t truly go away. And then one day they do find their mate, and it’s finally really _okay_ for the first time; they don’t have to fear the empty wanting anymore, because they know their mate will be there to fill it. But I guess that’s not quite the way it is for us Alphas, is it?” she laughed to herself. “No, we go about life never really knowing what _need_ is until the day we find a mate, and after that, it’s an avalanche of need; to protect, to provide for, to care for. And like I said, it takes practice— learning to recognize instinct apart from desire. But my Georgie was the one to teach me to look past the black and white.” Not for the first time, Bucky could hear the smile in his mother’s voice. “I think I rather liked the parts of myself that I found in all those gray areas.”

Bucky heard a shuffle behind him and he whipped around, finding Becca standing there with a quirked eye-brow.

“Eavesdropping on the shovel talk?” she teased.

“Not quite,” Bucky chuckled, finally pushing through the doorway and taking his plates to the sink. Steve turned and beamed at him as he entered, rushing over to help.

After pecan pie and more sitting around on the back porch Bucky and Steve said their goodbyes. He gave whole body squeezes to each of his parents and his sister, then happily gave Alexei a warm hug, too. Steve followed behind him with an earnest pat on the back and shoulder squeeze for the other Alpha.

Bucky felt warm and fuzzy, absolutely everywhere.

—

“So I was thinking,” Steve said later that night as they lay in bed, Bucky playing Tetris on his phone while Steve read his book.

“Uh oh,” Bucky teased, looking up at Steve.

Steve elbowed him playfully in the side. “Shove it,” he laughed. “So I was thinking that we might go somewhere for Christmas and New Year’s. If you’re up for it? Your dad told me that they’re going to Romania for the holidays, so I thought maybe we could spend it together— just the two of us, I mean.”

“I love that idea,” Bucky said, watching Steve’s face light up. “Where are you thinking?”

Steve’s face curved into an impish grin as he closed his book. He tugged Bucky up to be eye-level with him and maneuvered them onto their sides, facing each other.

“So… I actually have a cabin. In Vermont.”

Bucky blinked, hard, twice. “Wait… what? You have a cabin? What kind of Avenger has a cabin in _Vermont_?”

Steve pretended to look wounded. “Hey, I’ll have you know it’s actually a very manly cabin, okay? Nothing like all the cushy vacation homes your boss has.”

“How have I never heard of this before?”

“I haven’t been up there since we started dating,” Steve shrugged. “It actually used to be a SHIELD safe house, but Fury gifted it to me when I came out of the ice. I used to spend a lot of time there after I first woke up.”

Bucky hummed thoughtfully and brushed a fallen eyelash off of Steve’s cheek. “I bet the City was pretty overwhelming for you, at first.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, it was nice to have somewhere secluded to escape to. I haven’t spent much time there lately, but there’s a caretaker. It’s beautiful in the winter, Buck. I think you’d really love it.”

Bucky considered the idea for a few moments. “So you’re saying it’s _not_ cushy? Like, are we going to have to stoke a wood stove to keep warm?”

Steve barked out a laugh, and Bucky felt his insides melt— as they always did— at the thought that he made Steve feel happy like that.

“Kids these days, _so_ spoiled.” He poked Bucky in the ribs. “Okay, so maybe it’s a little cushy. I may have been a little freaked out when they thawed me, but I wasn’t exactly disappointed in all the creature comforts this century had to offer. Plus, it had to be fully wired for SHIELD communications back when it was safe house.”

“Hmm… So we could have a little winter vacation, just us?”

“Yeah,” Steve smiled, gathering Bucky closer in his arms. “What do you say?”

With only inches separating them, Bucky could pick up all the finer details of Steve’s scent; the earl gray tea, the cedar, the wood smoke. He imagined how perfect it would be to smell Steve in a snowy, forested wonderland, the two of them tucked away from the rest of the world and wrapped up in each other.

“Yeah, let’s do it. I want to.”

Steve’s smile grew as he placed one big hand on the back of Bucky’s skull to draw him in for kiss. After he pulled away, he settled his face in the hollow of Bucky’s neck and hummed sleepily, inhaling and exhaling deep, rubbing his nose absentmindedly against Bucky’s scent glands every now and again.

Bucky dreamt of cedar log cabins and endless blankets of white, white snow.


	3. Scenes from a December (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve the Tool Man. Bucky's winter wardrobe. Lunchtime surprises. Steve and Bucky's evolving sex life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Brief Warning:** Bucky gets his arm grabbed by a creepy stranger in this chapter. Nothing sexual about the contact, but I thought it worth a warning.

_December 1_

_Thursday - 1:30 P.M_

Bucky tugged his scarf more tightly around him as he exited the subway station, shielding the already chapped skin of his face against the unforgiving late autumn wind. The streets of Brooklyn were busy with the workday crowd coming and going for lunch, but Bucky’s destination was —unusually for a Thursday in the middle of the day, and only due to a snafu at the lab — his and Steve’s home.

_Steve_ — his incredible partner whom Bucky knew was currently hard at work in their apartment on the fifth day of his renovation efforts, which… okay, had largely consisted of making a mess so far. While it was clear that Steve _did_ seem to know what he was doing, it was also clear — in an oddly endearing way — that Steve was so excited about having something personal to work on that every ounce of exuberant, youthful energy left in his big body was coming out to play.

Honestly, Steve was more relaxed than Bucky had ever seen him. It wasn’t that he’d never seen him feeling relaxed or happy before, but _now_ it was like he was seeing an entirely new side of his Alpha. And while Bucky didn’t know if it was the renovation project, the vacation from the burdens of being an Avenger, maybe something about their therapy session with Dr. Welsh, or some result of all of the above... 

Bucky _loved_ it. 

Somehow, Steve's new energy made their relationship feel new again, too. After seeing Dr. Welsh, Bucky felt like some tense muscle that he hadn’t even known existed had suddenly relaxed between them. It was although they had been waiting for permission to discard all that emotional luggage the Heat bestowed upon them, and suddenly a _permission_ had been granted; they could simply relax and enjoy each other again, like... like a _normal_ couple.

And while things in their life had been busier than ever — Steve had the apartment renovation, and Bucky was swamped at work trying to finish a project that he needed to submit to testing before Christmas — the two of them somehow found time to fuck a lot. A _lot_. They were taking full license from Dr. Welsh’s directive to just _enjoy_ sex without worrying about knotting, and yeah, they were executing that directive on every surface in their apartment (at least, those that had not yet been annihilated by Steve the Tool Man).

They had something even better to look forward to, as well. Bucky had to work the first two weeks of December, when Steve would also be carrying out the biggest chunk of the renovation work, and then Steve was whisking Bucky away to Vermont until after the New Year, where Bucky fully planned on making Steve cuddle and fuck him all over his secret, snowy cabin in the woods. 

But while Bucky was excited for their vacation, he also wasn’t in a hurry to make the time until then pass by. Each new day with this new, happier Steve Rogers showed Bucky a bright and brilliant hue of his Alpha’s heart and soul and capacity to love; it was one dazzling flash of color after another, filled with every shade of the man that he’d loved already, and a hundred new shades Bucky was only just beginning to see.

Finally in the warmth of their apartment building, Bucky trotted up the stairs and turned the unlocked door knob. When he pushed in, he was immediately met with a thick, suffocating cloud of white dust, floating through the door frame to stage an assault on Bucky’s respiratory system.

_What the actual fuck?_

Shocked, coughing up dust, and trying to wipe his eyes, Bucky could just barely make out Steve’s imposing form through the chalky fog.

“Baby!” Steve shouted from behind a paper face mask that covered his nose and mouth. A pair of plastic safety glasses shielded his eyes from the dust. “Shit, you’re home. Sorry about the dust — tried to time it so I could ventilate everything out before you got here, but uh, shit, you’re early.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Bucky managed through a cough, looking around in a daze at what used to be their apartment. “JARVIS had to push through some unscheduled system maintenance; kinda useless to be in lab until he’s done… What the _fuck_ are you even doing, Steve?”

“Well, uh…” Steve pulled the mask down his nose to hang off his chin, then gave Bucky an almost bashful sort of smile, like... well, exactly like a kid caught making a mess. “This is what it looks like when you knock down a bunch of walls.”

“It didn’t look like this— _echk_ ,” Bucky coughed again. He covered his face with his sleeve, trying to clear it out, and Steve ran over to hand him an extra face mask that he had grabbed off the countertop. Bucky took it gratefully, and Steve went fishing through his supplies for extra glasses. “It didn’t look like this when you knocked down the big wall on Monday,” Bucky finished, referring the the long wall that once separated their apartment with the vacant neighboring unit. 

“It did, actually, but I had everything ventilated out before you got home from work.”

Bucky sputtered out one last weak cough behind his mask. “Geez, are you trying to get us asbestosis? This building was built before you joined the army!”

Steve was quick to answer his reassurance. “You don’t have to worry, I had a professional check all of that out before Tony even bought the place. These units were all renovated in the nineties, and all the building materials tested clean.” 

Even in his dusty haze Bucky couldn’t help but be impressed by Steve’s forethought; it wasn’t like people back when Steve was growing up knew about things like asbestos. But while Bucky was impressed, he wasn’t surprised. If there was one thing he knew for certain after watching his boyfriend start this project over the past week, it was that Steve was one hell of a planner. When he had first told Bucky that he already had all the necessary permits in place to start the renovation, Steve had apparently meant All The Permits. Bucky had woken up the Saturday after Thanksgiving to find Steve directing a crew of men placing a massive demolition dumpster outside their fire escape, which Steve — or maybe Captain Rogers? — had apparently obtained permission to do through a permit to block off the _entire fucking sidewalk,_ for a _month_. It was smart of him, though; all the enormous quantities of scrapped drywall and linoleum were easily (well, easily for _Steve_ ) compacted and tossed out to the waiting container down on the street level. Steve seemed to strategize building renovations with the same fervor and attention to methodology that he used to take out terrorist cells.

Steve located the extra pair of safety glasses and handed him to Bucky, who donned them immediately and tried to blink out the dust. Closing the front door behind him, Bucky took a moment to take in the current state of their apartment, and it took him awhile to understand what he was seeing.

When Steve had first knocked out the big wall out between the two apartments— which were the same floor plan, mirrored — and effectively doubled the dimensions of their living room, Bucky had expressed some concern that they didn’t need a space _that_ large to just watch TV, or to maybe put a larger breakfast table. Steve had then explained that a lot of their previous living room area would soon be absorbed by the expansion of their bedroom and kitchen, but Bucky’d had a hard time envisioning it. _Today_ , though, Steve had actually demolished the walls previously separating the bedroom from the rest of the apartment, and Bucky could see the markers where he was going to install beams for the new wall. 

Fuck, their new master suite was going to be spacious as _shit_.

“I’ve only got maybe another two hours left on this section,” Steve explained, “then I can run the filter system and cleanup. Do you maybe wanna head out somewhere for a little bit while I finish? Not like you can watch TV or take a nap right now anyways.”

Bucky looked around a bit more and found that the apartment — Steve’s workspace — was actually more of an organized mess than he’d thought it would be. Through his bewilderment at seeing Steve’s project mid-task, Bucky was suddenly overcome with a wave of pride and gratitude for all the hard work his Alpha was doing.

“I could. Or I could stay, and help you?”

Steve’s expression melted a little at the apparently unexpected offer. “That’s really sweet of you, baby." He stepped in close and set his hands on Bucky’s hips, giving him an affectionate smile. “But I really don’t want to risk you breathing this stuff, even if it’s just dust. I might have an idea, though... Why don’t you go shopping?”

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him. “Shopping for what?”

The corner of Steve’s mouth quirked upward, and he slowly began backing Bucky’s body up a few feet until his back made gentle contact with the front door.

“You mentioned last week that you were thinking about getting some new winter clothes for our trip to Vermont,” Steve said, “and since we’re going to be there for a few weeks, you probably wanna get a _lot_ of cute winter clothes... right?”

He gave Bucky his best, most charming smile, then looked down and away to the credenza next to the them (currently covered with a tarp, as was all their furniture) and picked up his own wallet, removing a little rectangle of stylish black plastic. 

Bucky let out a high-pitched scoffing sound. “Steve, no. _No,_ we’ve talked about this. You’re not gonna give me your credit card and tell me to go off on some kind of— what, shopping spree?— when you know I’m perfectly comfortable with my own bank account—”

“Please, angel?” Steve’s eyes had gone full-on puppy dog for Bucky, which combined with the pet name really wasn’t fair at _all_. “Think of it as something you’re doing _for me_?”

“How does me needlessly spending your money instead of mine qualify as doing _you_ a favor?” 

“Look, I’ve got seventy years of Army back pay… plus everything SHIELD pays me. Even after giving half of it away to charities, I’ve got nothing left to spend it all on.” He smiled sheepishly and twirled a lock of Bucky’s hair between his fingertips. “Except _you_ , baby.”

Bucky shuddered, steeling himself from melting into goo, and regarded Steve warily. He really _could_ afford his own winter wardrobe; Tony paid his engineers very well, and besides, it wasn't like he had _bills_ to pay anymore, thanks to that ridiculous stunt Steve had pulled when he moved in. 

Still… there was something strangely enticing about his partner— his lover, his _Alpha_ — almost begging Bucky to go spoil himself on Steve’s dime. It caused the faintest shiver of excitement to run down Bucky’s spine, for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Did he secretly want to be a sugar baby?

“Can we set a limit, at least?”

Steve’s eyes brightened immediately upon hearing that he had won, before he lowered his lashes and brushed his chapped lips teasingly against Bucky’s mouth.

“You know,” he whispered, “it would really kind of _do it_ for me if you came back and said you never even looked at a single price tag…”

Dear god… this man was fucking _impossible_.

“Fine,” Bucky grumbled, moving his hand up to take the card from Steve. He stopped just short of grabbing it as an idea popped into his head. “I do have one condition, though.”

The corner of Steve’s lips quirked up. “Okay…”

“ _I_ get to pick out a few wintry things for _you_ to wear, too.”

Steve dropped his head to his chest and chuckled, before leaning in to give Bucky a real kiss.

“Whatever you, want, sweetheart.”

Four hours later Bucky came home with vast armfuls of shopping bags and a sack of Thai take-out to find his boyfriend freshly showered and their apartment — impressively — practically dust-free. They removed the plastic from their couch and ate their coconut chicken soup in front of the television. After a while spent just digesting, Bucky had Steve settle in, massive grin on his face, for the fashion show of his life: Vermont cabin edition.

When he’d gone through five of the six shopping bags he’d brought home, Bucky reached for the last and ordered Steve to strip off his shirt. Steve complied with a knowing grin, and Bucky preened as he climbed into Steve’s lap and made quick work pulling a plush, off-white cable-knit sweater over his head.

And it was good that the sweater was cream-colored already. It made the stains much, much easier to get out.

—

_December 3_

_Saturday- 6:45A.M._

For the second day in a row, Bucky woke to the sound of the front door opening and not-quite-slamming shut. Without even looking at the clock Bucky knew that the time was approximately seven in the morning, and that Steve was returning from his morning run. Although his boyfriend’s military-esque morning routine had not changed much during his time off work, the current of absence _walls_ and a _door_ separating their bedroom from the rest of their currently-under-construction apartment was new. It also meant that the their front door was, at least temporarily, in the same ‘room’ as their bed, and the sound of said front door being banged shut by an overly energized-super soldier — hot off of finishing his daily marathon — was, for the time being, not muffled by the sweet luxury of dry wall.

Bucky groaned and rolled over, grabbing the pillow from Steve’s side of the bed and smothering his own face with it. He could hear Steve chuckle at him on his way to the bathroom, where Bucky heard him close the door and start the water for his post-run shower.

In the back of his mind Bucky registered that he definitely had a case of morning wood, which — while not at all unusual for him — was not something he was going to deal with at the moment. He was tired and his semi was manageable, for now; Steve had fucked him into the mattress the night before, hard, _twice_ , until Bucky felt sated and Steve had knotted Bucky’s fists and they were both on the cusp of sleep. Bucky turned onto his stomach and was once again out like a light in less than a minute.

The second time Bucky woke up, halfway lying on his stomach, it was because of the big, hard wall of muscle pressed into his back. Wait, no; it wasn’t just the muscle pressing into Bucky, _Bucky_ was pressing back into it as well. In fact, it seemed his hips were moving of their own accord in rhythmic, undulating motions: forward into the mattress, giving his now eager morning wood just a _hint_ of pressure and friction, and then back in to Steve’s lap, where the beginnings of a thick erection were pressing into the valley of Bucky’s ass. He was fucking _wet_.

Some innate understanding told Bucky that Steve had probably been spooning him for awhile now, giving him a warm body to grind back into while he slept with a head full of sensual dreams. The thought alone had him letting out a faint moan of embarrassment. Steve had probably witnessed Bucky _humping_ into the fucking mattress like a goddamn teenager and decided to snuggle up to him, allow his unconscious body the relief of pressure until Bucky either woke up or spilled onto the sheets.

“S-Steve.”

“Mm,” Steve hummed into the back of his neck. The herbal smell of Steve’s freshly shampooed hair created a tantalizing blend with Steve’s natural scent, and Bucky felt himself become even wetter. “Good morning, _sweetheart_.”

Oh fuck, oh, _fuck_.

All Bucky wanted to do was to stop his ridiculous rutting and bury his face in the pillows, not look Steve in the eye for the rest of the day, but the second his hips begrudgingly began to stutter and break rhythm Steve’s big hands were there, grabbing onto him and helping— no, _making_ him keep time.

“Aw, Buck, don’t stop on my account. You need my help to feel good?”

It was obvious Steve didn’t actually expect Bucky to answer from the way he slid a hand down from Bucky’s hipbones to his ass, accentuating his words with a teasing press of one fingertip against Bucky’s slick hole. If Bucky thought he was embarrassed before, it had _nothing_ on the way his face turned into flames when he heard the absolutely shameless moan that was ripped from his chest. He made a pathetic attempt at wiggling away but it only served to rub Steve’s finger harder against the pliant give of his body. Bucky was surprised it didn’t just slip right inside; he knew how open he still was after last night.

“What, you need something inside you, honey?” Steve teased, whispery hot below Bucky’s ear. “Even after how sweet you were taking it for me just last night?”

Bucky felt flushed, body on fire, overwhelmed. He wanted to be able to put two words together, wanted to be able to whine and sass something in return, to say that he wanted it this bad ‘ _because_ I took it for you last night’ but his tongue couldn’t form a retort, and he wouldn’t even know whether to moan it or to scream it, so he settled on a dumb whimper from somewhere high in his throat. 

_“Steeeve…”_

Steve’s answered with one of his signature smoky chuckles. “Hasn’t even been _eight hours_ , baby.” 

The teasing fingertip finally gave it up and slipped into Bucky’s heat, sinking in down to just that first knuckle. Bucky knew it the moment Steve felt the wetness of his own release, still very much inside of him. 

“ _Ohh_ ,” Steve groaned. “See what I mean? You’re still all full’a me.”

But _god_ , Steve was right, Steve was _so fucking right_ and Bucky could still hear the sounds of skin slapping on skin echo in his mind, could still feel those powerful thighs pounding bruises into the soft bounce of Bucky’s ass. There was absolutely no reason — Bucky thought, as Steve removed his fingertip and replaced it with two — _no reason_ that he should still be feeling so intensely horny; he knew he was nowhere near his next Heat, and his boyfriend had fucked him silly only hours ago, and he wasn’t a _sixteen year old,_ for Christ’s sake. Even Steve, a damn super soldier with the energy and sex drive of a jackrabbit, was only half-hard and rubbing lazily against Bucky’s backside.

Suddenly and inexplicably there were tears prickling the corners of Bucky’s eyes and his breath was becoming short, shallow— which in itself was _also_ _so stupid_ , Bucky raged inwardly. Was he seriously about to cry because he couldn’t handle his own damn libido? Because his boyfriend was so intensely stacked and ripped and blazing hot that it actually left Bucky _humiliated_ at his own reaction, soaked in his own arousal?

Steve, unsurprisingly, scented Bucky’s distress the moment it began to unfold. He didn’t pull his fingers out— thank god, Bucky didn’t want to think about how he might react if Steve _stopped_ — but he moved his other hand from Bucky’s hip to apply a firm, even pressure against Bucky’s belly. The gesture was, bizarrely, an immediate comfort. The weight and intimacy of it felt like a command, an order from his Alpha to still himself inside and out.

“Hey,” Steve whispered, softly and evenly into Bucky’s ear. He pulled Bucky tighter into his muscled chest. “None of that. You’re right where I want you to be. Okay?”

He wanted to nod, to give Steve some kind of answer in the affirmative, but even though he no longer felt like bursting into tears his breath was still stiff in his throat.

“Bucky, it’s _okay_. It’s okay, sweetheart. Just tell me, is this where _you_ want to be right now?”

Bucky began to almost panic once more at Steve’s question, because yes, _yes_ he wanted to be here with Steve’s fingers or Steve’s cock or Steve’s tongue or Steve’s _anything_ inside of him, and he never wanted to be anywhere else, ever, and how was such a mindless _cockslut_ supposed to actually be a _functioning adult_ —

— and then Steve, obviously on high alert now, removed his fingers. Bucky wanted to _wail_.

“Answer me, Buck. Is this where you want to be right now?”

_“Yes!”_ Bucky knew he sounded pathetic, his cry scratchy and weak and desperate, but he wanted Steve’s thick fingers back inside him so bad he felt like he would commit any number of felonies to get them there. Goddamn, he was such a fucking mess. “Yes! Please, _please_ Steve.”

Then he felt the tension leave Steve’s shoulders and the older man wasted no time pulling Bucky’s body even tighter into his own. He pressed a grin into the back of Bucky’s neck. Bucky wasn’t sure whether or not he did shed a tear of relief when Steve finally put his fingers back inside of him.

“Good, baby. Then that’s all that matters. If you wanna be here, nice and wet and feeling good on my fingers, then the only place I want to be is right here with you.”

Despite his earlier panic, for some reason Steve’s words did finally make Bucky relax a little. He let out a shaky but alleviating breath that he felt like he’d been holding for hours. Steve wanted this, and Steve loved him, and Bucky wanted _everything_ with Steve. 

Steve seemed to notice the tension draining from Bucky’s body, and he rumbled a low, approving noise into the skin of his neck.

“I _love_ how much my little angel always wants it. And I wanna give it to you.” Steve starting pumping his fingers a little deeper, letting Bucky really feel the light but pleasant stretch. “God, you really have no _idea_ what this does to me, Buck.”

As if to demonstrate the veracity of his words, Steve pressed his hips forward a little bit harder and Bucky could feel the Alpha at full-mast. He made a whimpering, wanting noise in his throat and made to turn his body around, to seek out that enormous cock and maybe ask to ride him?— but Steve stopped him by holding him firmly in place.

“Nuh-uh. You’re sweet, baby, but I just want to focus on you right now.”

“But I _want_ —”

“Shh… Shush, I know. And we _can_ , later, I promise. But just right now I don’t want any distractions. Relax for me.”

And then Steve twisted his fingers and pressed right into Bucky’s sweet spot, and any fight Bucky could have had left in him evaporated into the atmosphere. He let his head fall heavy onto the sheets and he closed his eyes, at long last allowing himself to sink into his own pleasure. He let the woodsmoke and sage of Steve’s unique scent wash over him, bathe him. Soothe him.

Steve was good to him. Steve was _so good to him,_ made him want to be good _for_ Steve. Right now he wasn’t trying to lay a constant assault on Bucky’s prostate, instead opting tease and graze over it with only the occasional deep press. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and Steve seemed content to let Bucky just let himself go and enjoy the sensation of fullness, of having something inside him that was agile enough to stimulate all the right places but still thick enough for him to clench down on. He kept talking to Bucky the entire time, telling him sweet, loving, _filthy_ things to make him moan and sweat.

“Sweet like honey, taking my fingers so perfect. You need another?”

And Steve helped himself to Bucky’s dewdrop-covered skin while he worked, tongue busy laving over his Omega’s neck in a gesture that was so warm and familiar by now that it sent Bucky directly into a warm, fuzzy head space. Lying there, hazy with the pleasure of his boyfriend taking care of him so sweetly, Bucky thought about how it might feel to have Steve open his jaws wide and bite down, to be… _marked_ , by his Alpha. The thought sent an involuntary shiver of delight through him, made him bear down on Steve’s fingers like they were a knot, but even in his pleasure-drunk stupor he managed to banish the guilty-sweet fantasies of marking and biting from his mind. He and Steve were doing great; no need to complicate things.

Steve fingered two body-shaking orgasms out of Bucky before ever letting him out of bed.

—

_December 4_

_Sunday- 2:30P.M._

One of the things that had always endeared Steve to Bucky most was that the man was a big fucking lug, _knew_ he was a big fucking lug, and overcompensated for it in the most endearing ways imaginable. Steve went about his day-to-day life holding his own body as though he might break the world simply by looking at it too hard. 

Like here, in an east Brooklyn home improvement warehouse, where Bucky was leaning idly against a display fixture and watching with a fond expression as Steve attempted to _squeeze_ past a couple of young, five-foot-nothing college-aged women who happened to be loitering in front of the stock shelf Steve needed to get to, apparently engrossed in an enthralling conversation. Not only did Steve successfully maneuver around them without so much as making accidental body contact, but the women appeared to be completely _oblivious_ to Captain America lifting a giant piece of porcelain up and over their heads.

Bucky watched with a lazy smile and crossed arms as Steve as effortlessly lifted a one hundred-pound bathroom sink onto their trolley without drawing attention to himself. The muscles in Steve’s arms and back shifted and flowed beneath Steve’s pale skin with every movement he made, and when he lifted the sink up high his too-tight shirt rode up just the slightest bit, giving Bucky a peek at the dark blonde trail of hair leading downward from his navel. Neat.

He was glad to get out on a weekend afternoon to run renovation-related errands with Steve. With all the craziness going on at work with trying to complete his project before the middle of the month, Bucky found that he had little time left to ‘help’ Steve with the apartment. It wasn’t that Steve _needed_ his help to complete the renovations; on the contrary, he had truly proven to be a one-man home makeover task force. Bucky simply liked the idea of being involved in some way, however small, while Steve was pouring all of his passion, work ethic, and creativity into making an incredible home for them. His Alpha truly was building them a _den_ , and Bucky just… wished he could be there for more of the process. Sunday trips to building supply stores would have to be enough, for now.

Steve rolled their now loaded trolley over to Bucky and flashed him a happy smile.

“Ready to go pick out a tub, baby?”

Bucky nodded and let Steve lead the way down another aisle. This was the real reason they were there; they needed to pick up the sink for their new master bathroom — which Bucky had picked out online, at Steve’s insistence — but Steve also wanted Bucky to look at all of the bathtub options and tell him what he wanted. Steve had been the same way with the countertops and the flooring and paint colors— _“Anything you like, baby, I want this to be your dream home.”_ And though Bucky protested at times — _“you’re the one doing all the work, Steve!”_ — he couldn’t deny that he loved this novel way Steve had found to spoil him rotten.

Steve sat back as Bucky began to explore all their options. Looking around, Bucky was almost intimidated by the sheer number of _choices_ there were in the world of bathtubs. Although he’d seen those corner jacuzzis in rich peoples’ master suites on television, or the nostalgic-looking clawfoot tubs on Pinterest, he himself had only ever actually used the boring tub-shower combination type. That was what he had back at his apartment, and though he had always loved that it was deeper than most others (enough to fit him and Steve, however squished), he could understand why Steve was insistent on installing separate showers and bathtubs during the renovation.

The warehouse was definitely big — a building supply showroom, actually — and Bucky suddenly felt giddy to be wandering by all of the enticing little bathroom design displays. It seemed like there were dozens of different sizes and styles of bathtubs; not just different lengths but widths and depths, too. Whenever he saw one that he thought might work he would crawl into it — earning a chuckle from Steve — and stretch out, imagining how he and Steve might fit in their together with a shared glass of red wine.

“This one feels pretty good,” Bucky considered aloud. It was a nice, off-white porcelain tub with a modern-looking design, long enough for his six-foot-two boyfriend to stretch out and deep enough to fit them both. There were even jets.

“Hm. Yeah,” Steve nodded, his tone sounding very intentionally noncommittal and unimpressed. Bucky watched an impish smile creep onto his boyfriend's face as Steve looked further down the aisle, like he had his eye on another display. He offered his hand to help Bucky out the tub before nudging him in the direction of his gaze. Bucky went, curious. 

“I was thinking something more like _this_ , actually.” 

Steve stopped Bucky in front of an almost grandiose display, with the largest bathtub Bucky had ever seen (or, maybe, the smallest _pool_ he had ever seen).

“Holy _shit_ , Steve.” 

Dumbfounded, Bucky reached out and ran his the fingertips almost reverently along the cool edge of the tub.It was absolutely enormous _;_ definitely longer than Steve's six-foot-two, and _deep_. Instead of the standard white porcelain it was made of a mixture of decadent-looking metals, with hammered copper on the outside and a satiny nickel on the side. The design was a breathtaking combination of opulence and industrial-chic. It was _beautiful_ , and... probably expensive as shit.

“Steve! You could fit, like, three guys your size in this thing!”

“Sure could,” Steve agreed. He came up closer until he was right behind Bucky, resting his chin on Bucky’s shoulder and wrapping his broad hands around Bucky’s waist. A subtle tickle in the back of Bucky’s brain warned him that his Alpha was up to no good. “But I was thinking more like just one guy _my_ size...”

Bucky let out an embarrassing yelp as Steve suddenly lifted him bodily up and forward, placing him down inside the tub like a parent moving a wriggling toddler.

“...and one guy _your_ size.”

“ _Hey!_ You— god, you are a complete savage, come — come here!” 

He tugged on Steve’s wrist as hard as he could until Steve pretended to be jerked forward by Bucky’s strength, staging a comically controlled tumble into the tub to join him.

The sound of Steve laughing deep in his ribcage inevitable pulled giggles out of Bucky, who couldn’t really pretend to be annoyed much longer.

When the laughter melted into relaxed smiles and the two of them got silly and comfortable together in the tub, sitting across from each other and holding hands, Bucky began to see the tell-tale signs on Steve’s face of him slipping deep into thought.

“Thank you, Buck.”

Bucky kept on smiling but gave Steve a confused look. “For what?”

Steve was quiet for a moment, picking at a thread on his blue jeans.

“For... letting me into your life, the way you did. For letting me interrupt you twenties, turn everything upside down. God, for letting me completely change your _home_ —”

“— _Our_ home, Steve.”

Steve gave him an almost shy smile in response to that. “Our home, then. For letting me, just...”

“Hey, _no_ ,” Bucky interrupted emphatically. “Don’t go acting like I’m doing you some kind of favor, okay?” 

Steve smiled without humor and hung his head in the slightest, sighing quietly, body language self-deprecating. Bucky wasted no time moving from his cross-legged position opposite Steve to fold himself into his boyfriend’s lap. Steve opened his arms without question, gathering Bucky up into an intimate bundle, holding him close and letting Bucky tuck his head into Steve’s shoulder. Steve began gently running the cool tip of his nose along Bucky’s scent gland — for his own comfort, more than just for Bucky’s.

They were silent for awhile, wrapped up in each other in a showroom bathtub. Bucky slowly traced the curve of Steve’s bicep with the tip of his index finger, touching him like he was everything that Captain America wasn’t supposed to be — delicate, vulnerable. He wondered if Steve had anybody before the serum that touched him like this, when he was slight, slender, and bird-boned.

Bucky tried to find the right words, struggled, but went for it anyway because he knew Steve needed to hear his voice. 

“Stevie, you… you know that I _want_ you to be in my life all those ways, right?” He placed a slow, intimate kiss against Steve’s clavicle, languidly like he wanted to save the skin beneath his lips. “You know that I want all of this just as much as you do? You’re letting _me_ in just as much as I am letting _you_ in. And I want that. I want it. Because…”

And as warm and safe as Bucky felt with his face nuzzled into Steve’s neck, he felt just then like he needed to be looking Steve in the eyes. He pulled back a bit and tilted his head up, and found Steve staring down at him with wonderment. _Reverence_. He looked at Bucky like he was some awesome, celestial being to behold.

“I want all of this because I _need_ you, Steve.”

“You don’t need me, Buck,” Steve was quick to interject, lips pursed. “You may want me, and I’m — _god_ , I’m so happy that you want me, so lucky — but we both know that you were doing just fine without me.” 

He shrugged as he said it, like it was an off-hand, casual comment, but Bucky didn’t miss Steve’s unspoken implication of _‘_ I _was the one who needed_ you _’_. It sat heavy in the air. 

Steve averted his gaze as though he was afraid that if he held it too long he would betray the solemn feeling in his chest. Like his eyes would betray that Bucky had somehow become the singular, vital element to Steve’s very existence. 

There were... a million and one things Bucky wanted to say.

“I _do_ need you, Steve.” 

He reached out to touch Steve’s chin in a request to look him in the eye again. Steve obeyed faithfully, and Bucky was reminded that there was nothing his Alpha wouldn’t do to make him happy. Steve would stretch his own comfort as far as it could stretch, would let it break and snap, if that’s what he thought Bucky needed from him. 

“I need _you_ if I want to live the life I really want to. You say I was fine before, and yeah, maybe I was _fine_ , but now, I...” Bucky smiled, and the corner of Steve’s mouth twitched upwards like his body had some biological imperative to smile anytime Bucky smiled. “This is the way I always _want_ to be. I need my Stevie to do that.”

He punctuated his statement with a kiss to the tip of Steve’s nose. It drew a small laugh from Steve, and the sound helped loosen the knot in Bucky’s chest. He felt even better when a warm wave of happy Alpha scent suddenly spiked the air.

Steve pressed a chaste kiss against Bucky’s lips and brought his hand up to the back of Bucky’s head, tucking his face back into Steve’s neck. Bucky went willingly and snuggled up again.

“I want that, too, Buck.” He pet at softness of Bucky’s hair as he whispered in his neck. “I always want to be like this. With you.”

They cuddled for a while longer before Bucky deemed it time to lighten the mood, making Steve stretch out with him in different positions in that too-big tub like he was assessing whether or not he would allow Steve to buy it for him. Like he wasn't already completely sold on it.

“Does SHIELD have cloning tech?” Bucky pretended to muse. “‘Cause if they do, maybe they could clone you a couple times and then I could have _three_ Steves in this tub. And you could all cuddle me and wash my hair. Like, Steve soup?”

Steve barked out a laugh, and the vibrations against Bucky’s back made him feel down right tickled.

“You are such a dork, babydoll.” 

Bucky grinned, twisting in Steve’s lap to face him. “Yeah, but I’m yours.” 

“Mhm, that’s right,” Steve answered fondly. The tone of his voice was light and dreamy. He framed Bucky’s face between his strong hands and brought him in for a kiss, soft, smiling like he couldn’t help it. “My one and only.”

—

_December 7_

_Wednesday- 12:15P.M._

_Fuck_ Tony Stark.

Bucky’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it. Whatever it was, he simply did _not_ have time to deal with it. Not right now, when StarkTech’s new internal bot programming platform — the one that Tony had _insisted on rolling out to his engineers even though Bucky told him it handled like shit and it wasn’t ready and the old platform was working just_ fine, _goddamnit_ — was definitely _not_ working for shit and Bucky had Things To Get Done.

He carelessly plopped the useless StarkPad onto his desk, not caring if it got dinged or banged up or _maybe he broke it, hopefully?_ Because it was certainly nothing but a hinderance to him today, when Bucky was feeling the anxious weight of the increasingly bigger time crunch he was under to finish this damn project. He wanted it to be done _now,_ because he and Steve were going to Vermont next weekend and if he had to put off taking a vacation because his damn boss _wouldn’t listen to him when he told him his shit was awful_ —

Bucky’s phone buzzed again. The repeated annoyance drew a guttural and angry groan from his chest. Who the fuck needed him _now?_ Someone in R&D? Fucking _Tony?_ He was so done with the day, and it was only lunch time and — _fuck_ — he should probably locate food to put into his body sometime soon and— 

Another buzz, and Bucky almost screamed as he damn near ripped the phone from his pocket, his irritation boiling over. Well, until he read the name of the sender.

**[12:16 P.M.] Stevie:** Come up for lunch?

Bucky’s shoulders relaxed. Just seeing Steve’s name made his anxiety melt in the slightest, but… _“Come up for lunch”?_ What?Steve wasn’t in Stark Tower, Steve was taking time _off_. Steve was at home working with the electrical contractor, Steve was—

**[12:17 P.M.] Stevie:** Team floor

**[12:17 P.M.] Stevie:** I picked up your favorite ;)

_Whatever_ , Bucky thought. If Steve was somehow in the building and he was offering Bucky a distraction from this project, Bucky wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

He grabbed his security badge and headed for the elevator that would take him up to the ‘Avengers Only’ levels of the building (which Bucky had clearance for, because what is his life?). He found the elevator empty — not unusual, as he was one of the few regular StarkTech employees that had access to those restricted floors. JARVIS took him straight up without Bucky even needing to say a word.

When the doors opened to the Avengers team floor — a sleek, luxurious living area with a fully-outfitted kitchen attached — he found it devoid of people except for his boyfriend. Steve was sitting on one of the plush, oversized couches with his feet propped up, arms hanging over the back. There was what looked like a bag of takeout on the coffee table in front of him. Steve’s eyes lit up when when he saw Bucky.

“Hey baby,” he greeted, head cocked flirtatiously and face stretched into an easy smile. “Thought maybe you could use a little break.”

Elated, Bucky wasted no time joining Steve on the couch. He leaned in to Steve’s open embrace and let out a deep sigh.

“How can you be here? I thought you had a contractor coming to the apartment.”

“Got the electrician coming later this afternoon, but I’m ahead of schedule on everything else. Felt like a good opportunity to surprise you at work.”

“Mm,” Bucky hummed with a contented smile. “I do like this surprise.”

As they dug into the delicious delicatessen Steve had brought, Bucky told Steve all about his problems in the lab. Steve was always the best listener; where other people might tell Bucky to get over it, that he was just whining, Steve would always encourage him to talk and make Bucky’s frustrations feel validated. (Also, Steve loved to hear _any_ kind of story that ended with ‘Tony Stark is an idiot and a jackass’.)

Steve cleaned up after they were done eating and settled back on the couch, pulling Bucky into a sweet, closed mouth kiss. 

“Do you have to get back to work right away, or can you stay awhile?” 

Bucky rested his head on Steve’s shoulder and considered the question. “I _should_ get back,” he groaned. “But I really, really don’t want to.”

Steve hummed in consideration. “Then stay a few more. You’ll be more productive if you have a minute to refresh.” He brought a hand up to gently cup Bucky’s jaw, running the calloused pad of his thumb along his cheekbone and tilting Bucky's face upwards. “Besides... I _might_ have some ideas on how to relax you.”

Steve grinned mischievously and brought Bucky’s lips to his in another kiss, deeper this time. He rested his other hand against Bucky’s lower back and pulled their bodies together in a way that could not be mistaken for innocent. Bucky couldn’t stop the little moan that escaped him at the subtle strength of Steve taking control. He allowed himself to sink into the light, buttery feelings.

It didn’t take long at all for the kiss to grow heated. When Steve groaned and pulled Bucky into his lap, Bucky had somehow found the self-control to pull back. He shot Steve a questioning look.

“What if someone walks in? We’re in a common area.”

Steve made a dismissive noise and dipped his mouth to nip lightly at the skin of Bucky’s jaw. “Almost everyone on the team is in Washington,” he said. 

“ _Almost_ everyone?”

Steve pulled back with an dramatic sigh of exasperation, but the corner of his mouth was quirked upward.

“JARVIS,” Steve said, “will you please inform us if anyone calls the elevator to this floor?”

“Of course, Captain Rogers.”

Steve smiled and leaned back in. “See?” he whispered between kisses. “No one’s gonna walk in on us, baby. Just relax.”

Bucky did melt a little, although he still was not totally convinced, and let himself be kissed. He couldn’t deny the little thrill he felt at the thought of messing around with Steve in a semi-public place, especially when the evidence of his excitement was quickly making itself known in his pants.

It wasn’t long before Bucky found himself semi-consciously grinding down into Steve’s lap. Steve made a pleased rumble in his chest, a distinctly Alpha noise, and then suddenly Bucky was being picked by two huge hands on the back of his thighs and flipped around. Steve set him down in the center of the couch and knelt on the floor between Bucky’s open legs.

“Steve! We can’t—”

“We can do anything we want, sweetheart,” Steve shot back with a wink. His deft fingers quickly worked Bucky’s belt open. “And what _I_ want is to see that pretty little dick.” 

Steve pushed Bucky’s jeans down just enough to pull out Bucky’s erection, which he wrapped his strong hand around with a victorious grin. He wasted no time getting his lips around the head and gave it a filthy suck. Compared to Steve Bucky wasn’t exactly big, and when Steve’s mouth sank down easily to the base he could feel him salivating heavily around the now rock-hard shaft. The sinful expression on Steve’s face reminded Bucky of how his boyfriend looked when eating a cinnamon sugar cookie fresh out of the oven. 

“Oh— oh, god, _Steve_ —”

While Steve worked his dick with his skilled lips, he used his hands to continue working off Bucky’s pants and briefs. Bucky was soon _very_ aware that he was bare-ass naked from the waist down on the fucking _Avengers’_ couch, and as much as he wanted to keep his eyes on everything that Steve was doing with his mouth, he couldn’t help but glance up at the elevator as though the doors would open at any minute and someone would come walking through. His distraction didn’t escape Steve’s notice. He pulled off with an _obscene_ slurp, replacing his mouth with his big hand ( _so_ big, big enough that just one could _completely envelop Bucky’s shaft oh my god_ ) and stroking him in torturously slow fashion.

“Eyes on me, angel,” he commanded. Bucky whimpered pathetically but obeyed like he was helpless not to, looking away from the elevator at Steve’s darkened features. “Or I might have to wrap a blindfold around that pretty little head 'a yours. Hm... might be into that, anyways.”

Oh… _oh_. That was information that Bucky needed to process at a later point in time.

Steve ran his hand along the inside of Bucky’s bare thigh. “Sweet thing, you gotta trust me. Do you really think I would let someone walk in here and see you all spread out like this? Let other people see you all _open_ for me?” 

Bucky’s mouth was completely dry. Steve patted his thigh lightly before grabbing a couple of throw pillows from the end of the couch, then manhandled Bucky’s hips upward so he could slide the pillows underneath. He shifted Bucky around until his ass was practically hanging off the couch. 

“No, I wouldn’t,” Steve answered himself. “And _you_ know I wouldn’t let that happen. ‘Cause this…” He ran his broad hand over the plane of Bucky’s abdomen, then up to his chest to pinch one little, pink nipple. Bucky gasped as his entire body erupted with goosebumps. “All of _this_ is just for me, baby.”

The dark possessive tone in Steve’s voice was enough to make Bucky loose a shameless moan into the otherwise quiet room. It only got louder when Steve took his hand off Bucky’s dick and pushed both of his thighs into his chest, and then he hardly had time to comprehend what was happening before Steve was dropping his head and giving Bucky a teasing lick to the soft skin of his balls.

Bucky bit down on his own lip _hard_ when his own moan threatened to turn into a scream. He writhed helplessly on the couch through Steve’s wet teasing, tongue never quite where Bucky so desperately wanted it. The feeling was _magnificent_ , made his fucking head reel and spin and made him nearly dizzy, but now with all the sounds he was making he still couldn’t help but be a little anxious, _wanting_ to trust Steve’s assurances that they wouldn't be discovered, but unable to shake that last bit of nervousness. But _fuck_ , did he want this, and Steve’s always did the most incredible things with his lips and tongue.

“Do you — _oh_ — do you really think that no one… ?”

Steve, apparently _done_ with talking about it, gave a warning nip to the soft skin of his ass cheek. When he lifted his head to look at Bucky, his gaze was fucking _scalding_. 

“I _think,_ ” Steve said, and the almost annoyed tone in his voice should _not_ have been as sexy as it was, “that if you want me to eat out this little pink hole, then you oughta stop worrying so much about what _other_ people are doing. Hm?” With that, Steve let spit dribble down from his lips to obscenely drool over Bucky’s rim. He followed it with an absolutely _filthy_ lick that made Bucky’s entire body light up in flames. “’S making me _jealous, sweetheart_.”

Later that afternoon, when Tony’s shit programming platform was working exactly as well as it had been that morning, Bucky didn’t even try to smash his StarkPad with a hammer.

—

_December 10_

_Saturday - 4:45 P.M._

The two of them were taking a break from their weekend errands, sitting on a street-side terrace outside their favorite bakery in the unseasonably warm sun, when Bucky did finally work up the nerve to ask Steve about it.

“Are you into kink?”

And, okay, maybe it ended up coming out a _little_ more direct than Bucky had intended. Maybe a lot more direct. Steve choked on his lemon loaf.

“Um… what?” he asked, once recovered.

“On Wednesday,” Bucky explained quickly, “when you… brought me lunch. You talked about blindfolds? You said you were... into that.”

“I said I _might_ be into that.”

“Yeah.” Bucky shrugged and picked at the wrapper on his cupcake. “So. Um… are you?”

Steve relaxed his broad shoulders and chuckle, shaking his head lightly. “To be honest, it was kind of just a quip. I thought it might get you excited. I, uh. I think maybe I was right.” He smiled at Bucky’s slight flush. “But I... don’t have a _thing,_ for blindfolds. Specifically.”

Bucky couldn’t help but feel the slightest twinge of disappointment, although he had no earthly clue why. It wasn’t like _he_ was particularly into blindfolding either. 

“Oh.”

Across the table, Steve tilted his head and considered Bucky a little more closely. 

“But you’re asking about _kink_ … overall?”

Bucky blushed again and nodded.

“Well then, I guess my best answer is ‘maybe’.”

Bucky arched an eyebrow, definitely a little more than intrigued by that response. He shot Steve a look indicating that Bucky fully expected him to elaborate.

Steve uncrossed and recrossed his legs. “I mean, you know I’d only been with a couple of people before you.” A slightest hint of pink peeked out from the top of Steve’s beard, like it always did when they talked that. There... was also the fact that they were technically on a public street. “I’ve never _tried_ any of it.”

There was… more to that statement. Yes.

“But?”

“But,” Steve continued, a tiny smirk appearing at the corner of his mouth, “I’m familiar. I’ve sort of… _researched_ it?”

“Because you wanted to try it?”

“Yes, and no.” 

Steve set down his plate and took a sip of his coffee, looking contemplative, like he was trying to decide how to phrase whatever came next.

“About a year after I came out of the ice, Natasha was trying to set me up with all manner of people. It got annoying after awhile, but at first I figured, ‘why not?’. At the very least, I thought it could be a good way to get a better feel for people in this century.”

“A _feel_ , huh?” Bucky teased.

“Ha, ha. Sometimes, perhaps.” Steve bumped Bucky’s shin under the table with a light, playful kick. “But anyways, there was this one beta woman that Nat wanted to set me up with; her hairdresser, actually — I think her name was Anne? And she wanted to show me a couple of pictures first, so she sent me links for this woman’s social media profiles. I looked through them. She was pretty, and she seemed nice. Had a cat she seemed to like a lot? But then I started clicking around more on her posts and saw that she was really, I guess, _open_. With certain aspects of her… _lifestyle_.”

It took a minute, but Bucky eventually got Steve’s meaning. His eyebrows shot up in disbelief.

_ No way! _

“Steven Grant,” Bucky chided, “did you date a _dominatrix?_ ”

Steve gave him a look that was somewhere between bashfulness and pride. “Guilty.”

Oh _god_ , this was too good. Steve was always finding new ways to surprise him.

“But you said that you haven’t ever actually, like, _played_ , right?” Bucky was pretty sure that was the word. “With kink?”

“No. We actually only ended up going on one date, and I’m not sure I would have even been ready to mess with anything that complicated. Didn’t really matter anyway because the chemistry just wasn’t there; she was actually the one to say she wasn’t interested in taking it any further. But still, she was actually really easy to talk to, you know? She never judged me for asking questions about the things I probably would have already known if I had lived in this century longer, if I’d been born here. It was refreshing, I guess. And that one date we did go on, we actually ended up talking for a really long time. It was… nice.”

Not for the first time in their relationship, Bucky took a moment to appreciate how very difficult it must have been for Steve to adjust to the world he woke up in. The more he learned about that struggle, the minutia of even the small challenges, the more he wished he’d have known Steve then and been able to support him through it. He’d probably never meet this ‘Anne’ woman, but he found himself grateful that Steve had met her and somehow found a rare moment of comfort, even if it was with a stranger.

“So I don’t know where I got the courage to do it,” Steve continued, “but I actually ended asking her about her, um. Her dominatrix life?” And _there_ it was, the blush was back. “There were definitely people in the 40’s that did that sort of stuff, but it was different then, and no one talked about it openly. But Anne — she _really_ liked to talk about it. _Really_. I think she was just excited to be able to discuss about her passion with someone that didn’t know a lot about, you know, kink.”

“I _see_ ,” Bucky teased. “So what did you learn, Stevie?”

“A lot of things I had to look up later on the internet to understand that the hell she was talking about, that’s for sure,” Steve laughed. “I actually used to undertake a lot of little research projects like that. Just ‘cause I wanted to know the things that people know today; at least, some of it. But in the process, I think I did learn that I was _not_ interested in getting myself a dominatrix.”

Hm. Bucky thought that deserved a little prodding.

“…Because?”

Steve shifted his weight in the chair once again and looked down at his lap. It was clear that he was thoughtfully considering how to word his answer. Eventually, he covered Bucky’s hand on the table with his own and swept his thumb over the skin of his knuckles. He licked his own lips as he met Bucky’s eyes.

“I guess I prefer being the one in control. Being the one to… guide things.”

Steve's broad hand was heavy atop his own. Bucky tried to hide his shiver at hearing Steve’s words, his implying tone, but he wasn't sure if he succeeded. His mouth had gone almost completely dry. 

Did Steve want to _dom_ him? Like, in more than a typical _Alpha_ kind of way? Did Steve actually want to do kinky things to him? Tie him up, blindfold him, call him names? 

Did _Bucky_ want that?

The truth was, Bucky had exactly as much real-life experience with kink that Steve did: absolutely none. But Bucky _knew_ about it, had experimented with watching different kinds of porn. He knew that the world outside of ‘vanilla’ was wide and varied, with tons of different kinds of props and role plays and whatever people were into, really. If Bucky were being honest with himself, a lot of the things he saw in those videos didn’t exactly appeal to him… but.

Perhaps there were some things about it that maybe _did_ intrigue him. Maybe he wasn’t into whips and leather and chains, but Bucky knew that if he looked past all that, exploring kink was really about trying a different kind of… _power dynamic_. For those people on PornHub, being in a scene seemed to allow them to let out a certain side of themselves that maybe they couldn’t express in real life. A side that maybe they had… _trouble_ , expressing?

It was… a lot to think about. Bucky didn’t even know if Steve was implying that they _should_ think about it; Bucky had been the one to bring it up, after all, and all Steve had really done is answer Bucky’s probing questions. And the reality was that Steve already _did_ take the reins when they were having sex, especially since they had been to visit Dr. Welsh and Steve had felt more comfortable letting go in the bedroom, and Bucky — well. 

Bucky _really_ liked it.

As he worked through his disjointed thoughts, Steve’s gaze on on him was weighty from across the table. A little uncertain, too — like maybe he thought Bucky didn’t like his answer — but mostly heavy, and curious. He gave Steve a small, genuine smile to communicate that nothing was wrong, that he was just processing, but before he could return any actual words Steve’s phone was going off in his pocket.

“Oh, babe, hold on,” Steve said, looking at the screen. “This is the plumbing contractor. I was waiting for her to call.”

Bucky nodded and went back to sipping his coffee. He was actually a little relieved by the interruption. There were some thoughts he wanted to take home and sleep on.

As Steve finished his call Bucky distracted himself by preparing for their next errand, going over the grocery list. When Steve hung up, he placed one of his big, warm hands on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Ready, sweetheart?”

When they got to the supermarket Bucky was pleasantly surprised to find it much less busy than it normally was on Saturdays. He certainly wasn’t going to complain.

He and Steve retrieved a cart and set about crossing items off of their list. While Bucky worked through the baking aisle, Steve went off to the health food section to find his disgusting protein shake powder, saying he would find Bucky when he was done. Bucky was busy trying to locate ‘the good cinnamon’ when he heard an unfamiliar voice speak, directed at _him_.

“Woah, is that a part of your _arm_?”

Jolting a little and the unexpected presence, Bucky looked up and found a short, stocky Alpha man standing a few feet away from him, and — weirdly — getting closer. His eyes were downcast at the metallic graft of his left arm, and he had sort of a goofy look on his face. It made Bucky nervous.

He was somewhat used to people asking questions about his arm, and for the most part, he was happy to tell them about it. Proud. Still, there was something about this guy that just rubbed him the wrong way. He smelled kind of _off_ , for one, and he was quickly crossing the line into invading Bucky’s space.

“Um, yeah,” Bucky answered, trying to be polite and cover up his obvious discomfort. He nonchalantly took a few steps back, trying to inch away from the creepy dude. “It’s a skin graft.”

“No shit?” the guy said. He was still gawking at the arm, and the behavior was definitely moving into the realm of ‘socially unacceptable’. Bucky wanted to get out of there. He looked over the guys shoulder and saw a quick and unimpeded out at the opposite end of the aisle; that would work. He could come back for the spices once he finished the rest of this list and the weird guy had left.

“Yep. Listen, uh.” Bucky tried to maneuver his cart around the guy, trying to hide how stiff his entire body felt. “I just need to get around here, gotta finish my shopping—”

But before he could finish his sentence and get away, the Alpha had used the opportunity of Bucky trying to get past him to reach out and _grab_ at his left wrist, pulling it towards him as though to better examine the metal. Bucky let out a yelp of shock and protest and tried in vain to pull his arm back.

_“Is there a problem here?”_

The offending Alpha's head snapped up suddenly to look over Bucky’s shoulder. He immediately pulled his hand away and jumped back three feet, as rapidly as though the metal graft had burned him. 

Bucky knew without a doubt that Steve was standing right behind him, probably only inches away. He could feel Steve’s presence and hear his breathing, could smell his proximity, and it was as though someone took Steve’s normal scent and turned it into something rabid and boiling.

When Bucky turned, arm now freed, he half-expected to see Steve shaking with anger and baring his Alpha teeth. But that wasn’t what he found; not quite. 

What Bucky _saw_ was the face of a pissed off, yet disciplined solider. He was eye-level and mere inches from Steve’s henley-covered pectorals, where that broad chest was absolutely _heaving_ but with slow, measured breaths. He was so close that Bucky had to crane his neck up to get a look at his Alpha’s face, and the low angle made the shadows on Steve’s expression seem even deeper; darker. His features were set in hard, unmoving lines that created the illusion that he was made of stone. Steve looked down to give Bucky a thorough once-over, as if assessing his state, before his unforgiving gaze landed squarely and intently back on the strange man.

That was what Bucky saw, but what he _smelled_ was an Alpha who was about three seconds from turning a man’s bones into ash. This close, the scent of Steve’s rage stole Bucky’s breath from his lungs.

And what he _heard_ was a low, _terrifying_ growling noise and—

_ “I asked you a question.” _

Bucky’s whole body broke out in goosebumps. Everything about his Alpha screamed _‘danger’_ in a way he had never witnessed before. There, in the middle of the supermarket, Bucky’s dick gave an inexplicable twitch inside his pants.

He turned back around to see that the weird guy had taken a good five steps backward and was still backing up. His face and scent conveyed shock and unadulterated fear as he took in Steve’s tall, imposing figure.

“S-Sorry man,” he stuttered, hand held up in front of his body defensively. “I just thought the arm looked cool, didn’t mean any—”

“Well then I guess you should have _asked him_ if you could touch it,” Steve countered. His tone was still deep and dark and _goddamn_ , Bucky had heard the ‘Cap Voice’ before but this… this wasn’t _that_. This was an Alpha protecting his Omega. “It’s _his_ arm.”

Then Steve moved around Bucky, a firm and guiding hand on his hip moving him backward and placing him behind Steve. The guy’s mouth continued to open and close like a damn fish.

“If I _ever_ see you trying to put your hands on him again,” Steve seethed, walking forward as the other man continued to walk backwards and away, “I will not hesitate to break all ten of your fingers. _Understood_?”

The guy gulped almost comically nodded and turned around without a word. He abandoned his cart completely and walked — no, _ran_ towards the store’s exit.

For a moment Bucky did not move, watching Steve. With that weird guy now gone — the _threat_ gone — Steve began to subtly but visibly tremble with the aftershocks of his own anger. Bucky came around and touched a gentle hand to his shoulder, tried to will his own scent to be something calming for Steve. Upon feeling the touch Steve shook his head and let out a big, leveling breath. He turned and pulled Bucky into his arms.

“Bucky, _baby_ , I’m so sorry. I know you can handle yourself. I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay, Stevie. Really.”

And it _was_. Never, ever in Bucky’s life had anyone other than his own parents come so ferociously to his aid. Sure, he knew he _could_ have dealt with the guy alone, told him to back off, get away, but... well. 

Suffice to say that watching Steve kind of lose it was _really_ fucking hot.

“I just… I saw him _touching_ you, and I could see you weren’t comfortable with it, and — shit, I think even if you _had_ been okay with it I still might’a lost it.” Steve held Bucky tighter to his chest and continued, almost just a whisper now. “I don’t know what came over me. That’s… I’ve never felt like that before.”

“Hey, when I say it’s okay I _mean_ it.” Bucky pulled back and tilted his face up to give Steve a reassuring smile. “Look, that guy clearly had no social boundaries, and he caught me off guard. I’m glad you were here. _Really_.” He ran his fingers through the blond’s beard, soothingly. “Besides, just because either of us _can_ get by on our own doesn’t mean we _have_ to.”

Steve looked at him, listening, and seemed almost in awe that Bucky was saying that to him. He took a moment to process the words before he gave him shaky but genuine smile. He gently grasped Bucky’s left hand, bringing the warm metal to his lips and kissing each individual joint. The other hand, on his waist, tightened, like Steve was trying to remind himself that Bucky was there and he was real and he was unharmed. And he was _Steve’s_.

And although it was not _Bucky_ who’d been the one overcome by protective and possessive instinct in middle of a supermarket, as Steve’s blue eyes bore into his own he was hit with the sudden realization that he would not hesitate to literally _kill_ for Steve Rogers, if it ever came down to it. It was a heady truth, and a bizarrely happy one.

“Come on,” Steve said, taking another deep breath and gathering himself at last as he led Bucky back towards their cart with joined hands. “Let’s finish up and go home. Did you find the good cinnamon?”

——

_December 10_

_Saturday - 9:45 P.M._

_"God, Steve... feels so good,_ oh _—”_

_“Fuck. I… can I have you, Buck? Oh,_ god _, please babydoll—”_

_“—yeah, Steve,_ yes _, come on—”_

_“We don’t gotta, you don’t have to say yes—”_

_“Steve?”_

_“—but fuck,_ please _sweetheart, if you’re okay with it then please let me have you, I just, shit, I_ gotta have you _—”_

_“Steve—”_

_“—we could do it however you wanna, ya know? However you’re most comfortable. Do you want to be on your back or on your stomach? Or I can — you could be on top of me—”_

_“—_ Steve! _”_

_“… Fuck. I’m. I’m sorry, Buck. Say what you’re try’na say.”_

_“Steve, I_ want _you. Stop trying to hold back.”_

——

_December 11_

_Sunday - 12:30 A.M._

Steve Rogers was not holding back.

No, Steve Rogers was fucking Bucky like he was wild out of his _mind_. Every movement, every slam of Steve’s hips to his and every rough nip to Bucky’s lips was intoxicatingly carnal, _desperate_. It was like Steve had tunnel vision, like his one and only goal in life was to make sure Bucky would _feel_ this tomorrow and remember how hard Steve had taken his body.

They had come home earlier with their groceries and Bucky had cooked them dinner, and Steve had hovered over him in the kitchen the entire time, never staying more than three feet away from Bucky but not really seeming to even notice he was doing it. After dinner, Steve had kept himself plastered to Bucky’s on the couch. He’d maintained multiple points of contact between their bodies and touched Bucky constantly — especially on his left arm. Normally Steve’s overbearing attention might have annoyed Bucky, but after the encounter in the supermarket… well. 

Steve had already made Bucky come twice since they started, hours ago. After the second time Steve allowed himself release, too, fist around his own knot while his thick cock spilled into Bucky until he was seemingly more full up than he had ever been before. Though Steve’s near animalistic drive seemed to calm ever so slightly in the wake of his orgasm, his cock remained rock hard, and the blue veins in his neck continued to throb with visible adrenaline. Bucky’s his own dick had quickly chubbed up again at the sight of his Alpha still so _wanting_ of him, and he had taken the short lull in Steve’s desperation as an opportunity to get him on his back and climb on top.

Which was where Bucky found himself now: riding his boyfriend, _hard_. Maybe it was just the energy in the room, some sort of positive feedback loop. Bucky didn’t know. But whatever drive it was that was making Steve _want_ and _fuck_ so intensely was also ringing out with Bucky’s heartbeat. 

When Bucky’s sore thighs could no longer keep up with his own ambition, Steve grabbed onto his waist tight and began fucking up into him with targeted, pounding thrusts. The sudden change and sheer force of Steve’s hips slamming into his had Bucky _howling_. When he reached for his own cock, it was no more than three pumps of before Bucky was coming all over his own fist with a garbled cry of Steve’s name. Steve shuddered at the sight and sound and gripped Bucky even harder.

“ _Fuck_ , sugar. Yeah— _yeah_ , squeeze down on my cock.”

The pulsating grip of Bucky’s walls around Steve was apparently enough to rev Steve up to full animal mode once more. He didn’t let up with the grind of his cock into Bucky, keeping one ridiculously thick arm around Bucky’s waist as he fucked him through it. Their apartment currently had no carpet, with sparse and undecorated walls, so Steve’s filthy groans echoed seemed to echo off of every surface in their home.

Bucky’s orgasm might have lasted forever. It ripped through his abdomen like a hammer and shook him to the core with an intensity that bordered on painful. When he finally began to come down, Steve relented a bit, fucking up into him still but at less brutal angle. He loosened his arms and let Bucky fall forward onto Steve’s chest, not caring about the mess between them.

But the reprieve did not last forever. Bucky was very much still becoming reoriented with the room around him when suddenly Steve flipped him onto his back. His huge cock slipped out in the process, and the void instantly made Bucky more aware that he was absolutely full with hot, viscous come. It was so much, _so much_ , and he knew that if he were to stand up there would be a puddle forming between his legs. It felt dirty and kind of shameful, and that combination of sensation made Bucky so fucking hot he couldn’t explain it. When he landed on his back he instinctively tried to close his legs, to hide his indecency and the evidence of how thoroughly Steve had fucked him — but then Steve’s big hands were on his thighs in a heartbeat, roughly pushing them apart once more. 

“Oh _fuck_ , Steve,” Bucky moaned, overwhelmed and out of breath as Steve sunk his cock back into his wet body with a lewd squelching sound. The form of Steve’s shaft quickly displaced the copious amount of fluid pooled inside him, and soon Bucky’s entire backside was absolutely _drenched_ with a mixture Steve’s come and his own slick.

He almost didn’t believe his own ears when Steve growled out, “ _come again for me_ ,” fervent and somewhere between commanding and begging, _“one more time,_ just _from my cock.”_

“Oh fuck — _fuck_ , Steve, I _can’t_!”

Steve leaned in and nipped his ear lobe harshly, and breathed out, hot.

“Wasn’t _asking_ , sweetheart.”

Before Bucky could even begin to process the lightning bolt of fresh arousal that struck him at hearing those words, Steve began moving his hips in circles again, and Bucky could do nothing but stare up at him — shocked, overwhelmed, and bewildered, but _so fucking turned on_.

Steve, face set in a look of determined concentration, soon started to fuck him in earnest again. He rocked hard and fast into Bucky like he’d never stopped in the first place, except it _wasn’t_ like before; it was rougher and faster and sloppier and even more desperate than the past few hours of intensity, and Bucky felt absolutely consumed by overstimulation, by pleasure and _Steve fucking Rogers_.

“Tell me you’re _mine_ ,” Steve demanded, voice rough and strained with the sound of his own need. 

Again, it wasn’t a question; Steve wasn’t _asking_. Bucky made pathetic noise somewhere between a hiccup and a whimper and almost wanted to cry when he realized that yet another orgasm was, impossibly, coiling tight in his belly. 

“Yeah, _yes_ ,” Bucky whined, “ _yes,_ Steve. ‘M _yours_.”

Steve growled out his approval and pushed Bucky’s thighs even wider, using them as leverage to thrust, as a brace for his own weight, and all Bucky could do was _take it_. Steve didn’t even need to touch his cock before Bucky was coming with a twinge of pain in his balls and some sort of erotic punch to the gut that had his brain all caught up in the rotation of the Milky Way.

“God _damn_ , sugar. Feel so damn good on my cock. _So good for me_. Yeah, just take this. _Take_ it.”

And if Bucky had thought that Steve couldn’t possibly thrust any faster, he was quickly proven wrong. He was hit with the realization that his body had evolved past overstimulation. His brain was now nothing but a mess of aftershocks and helpless noises but it all began coming together to build something new, each fragment a piece of carpentry to reconstruct his mind and his body as a vehicle for Steve to take his own pleasure.

The arrival of Steve’s orgasm was heralded with a guttural groan and the sensation of Steve pulling his cock out of him, left fist wrapped around his pulsing knot. Bucky watched dazedly as Steve pulled himself onto his knees, right hand going up to stroke his own cock in fast, desperate movements until Bucky felt searing hot come splashing all over the skin of hips and abdomen. Bucky’s voice was a shock to his own ears when he loosed a delighted moan at the feeling, at the sight of Steve looking down and watching himself mark Bucky up in an incredibly carnal, possessive way that he had never actually done before, his hand pale-knuckled over the huge and purpled bulge at the base of his cock. He could feel his inner Omega pounding and thrumming inside the bracket his own hipbones, singing bright and high with pleasure.

Steve’s orgasms always seemed to last for an eon. After a full, blazing hot minute, once he had wrung out each drop onto Bucky’s skin and the tension in his knot started to visibly deflate, Steve fell back to horizontal and pulled Bucky tight to him, kissing him deep. There was so much of both of their come splattered across Bucky’s body that actual squelching sounds could be heard as Steve rubbed their chests together. Bucky was electric but boneless, putty; no structure to his body anymore except where Steve needed it. He kissed Bucky until Bucky’s mouth, dry from panting, was wet again. 

Then Steve’s lips were gone and Bucky could feel him roving down Bucky’s legs. Even with his head still clearing the fog, he knew without a doubt exactly where Steve was headed. His boyfriend had developed a particular habit in recent weeks, and it never failed to both make Bucky’s dick twitch and leave him feeling conflicted. 

It had become Steve’s post-coital routine, of sorts. After they both finished, Steve would get Bucky flat on his back and hold him _open_ : one large hand under his knee, pulling his leg up and out for easy access, and the other hand under his ass, calloused thumb gently spreading Bucky’s stretched, leaking hole wide enough for Steve’s view. The first couple of times Steve had done this Bucky had found himself flushing a furious shade of pink, feeling hot under such intimate scrutiny while also feeling a sharp wave of arousal. It made his veins tingle to know that Steve was watching his own seed leak out. The third time Steve had done this, however, Bucky had taken a closer look at Steve’s expression and found more than just hunger. Steve was examining Bucky — checking him for tearing.

At that first realization, Bucky had suppressed a shameful moan, overcome by hindbrain thoughts about Steve looking out for him, his Alpha making sure he wasn’t hurt—and also by the reality that Steve’s cock was actually _big enough_ that the concern could have been borderline legitimate, had Steve not always been so thorough with his preparation. But… 

But he’d _also_ been pissed the fuck off that Steve still didn’t trust himself that he didn’t — couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ hurt Bucky. It felt... it felt like a reminder of all the progress still left to make. 

When he had first called Steve out on it, the other man had blushed and halfway apologized— but he never _stopped_ doing it; he just started hiding it better. Steve was still getting in concerned checks each time after they finished: sometimes while Bucky was still coming down from his orgasm, sometimes just under the filthy guise that he really liked to watch his come dripping out. 

So Bucky just shot him an unimpressed glance, each time and this time, with a shake of his head. Exasperated — but undeniably melting a little  nonetheless. 

Between Bucky’s legs, Steve completed his less-than-furtive check and then, voice full of gravel, announced: 

_“Gonna clean you up, baby.”_

— right before he dove his mouth in and proceeded to _lick his own come out of Bucky_ , and fuck, Bucky could just picture it: copious, copious quantities of Steve’s seed leaking out faster than Steve could lick it up, the remainder dripping down his chin and Bucky could feel it on his balls now, and that was the end of it — Bucky’s brain logged right the fuck off.

So maybe progress wasn’t linear, but that didn’t mean Bucky couldn’t enjoy the journey— and oh, fuck, today’s leg of the journey was fucking _filthy_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This is Bucky's new 78-inch bathtub](https://www.signaturehardware.com/78-extra-wide-marcy-hammered-copper-double-slipper-bath-tub-with-nickel-interior.html?gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=Cj0KCQjwm9D0BRCMARIsAIfvfIY3WNe1PbNX39L4EjCn30UOtkDuf0lXCH6HuqbYfUa_Pm0-qfsaO5QaAgvOEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds)


	4. Scenes from a December (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky get naughty— and maybe a little emotional— at Tony Stark's Christmas Gala.

_December 13, 2016_

_Tuesday - 8:30 P.M._

The Stark Industries Christmas Gala was no fucking _joke_.

Nor were any of Tony’s parties, really; not the StarkTech employee Christmas parties, or any of the other various functions Bucky had been invited to over the years as a Stark employee. Still, this was the first time Bucky had been invited to _the_ Christmas Gala— and as _Captain America’s plus one_ , no less.

Bucky was going to make the best of his night.

Walking through the opulently decorated Stark Tower atrium with a glass of bubbles and Steve’s hand sat firm but gentle against his lower back, Bucky was feeling like arm candy in the _best_ way. He knew perfectly well that he looked good in his custom-tailored three-piece suit. It was a decadent midnight blue color, a new and indulgent purchase courtesy of one very insistent Alpha. Steve himself had also donned a crisp three-piece, although his was jet-black all over, black shirt and waistcoat and silk tie included.

They’d been at the party for probably half an hour already, and Steve— being that he was not just Steve but also _Captain Rogers_ — had been flagged down by senators and tycoons and socialites one after the other from the moment they’d walked in. Bucky did love the obvious way that Steve was using all of their various encounters with Very Important People as an opportunity to show off his boyfriend, but still, Bucky’s cheeks were starting to hurt from all the polite smiling. So when Bucky spotted Natasha’s signature red mane across the room at about the same time Steve did, he shot Steve a subtle but pointed look, and Steve quickly conjured up a reason to excuse themselves from their present company. (Whatever the hell their names were.)

As they walked across the floor towards Natasha, arm-in-arm, Steve leaned down and whispered low into Bucky’s ear.

“I know I already said this, baby, but you look absolutely _stunning_.”

Bucky let himself preen at the compliment, and he lifted his chin up to receive a chaste kiss. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“No, _seriously_ ,” Steve said with a little shake of his head, “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take my eyes off of you tonight for even one second.”

They paused their walk to grab a couple of hors d’oeuvres and fresh drinks from the circulating catering staff, and Bucky accepted his glass from Steve with a coquettish wink and a smirk.

“Who said I wanted you to?”

They weren’t the only two people in the room; not by a long-shot. Still, even surrounded by the bustle of half-tipsy people enjoying the party and the open bar, Bucky didn’t miss the way Steve’s eyes darkened almost warningly.

“Come on,” Steve said after finishing his little spinach-bacon-whatever finger food and disposing of the napkin. He returned a guiding hand to Bucky’s lower back and gave him a heated look, a wry smirk. “Let’s go say hello to Nat before I decide to find a broom closet to undress you in.”

Bucky’s grin grew, and he let himself be led. As they walked, he tried his best to ignore the little jostle of secret indulgence inside of him.

 _Oh Steve_ , he thought, _you have no idea._

Because Bucky had an early Christmas present, just for Steve. And it was just about ready to be unwrapped.

By the time nine o’clock rolled around, Bucky was feeling happy and flushed and just a little tipsy on his third glass of champagne. His gorgeous boyfriend was smiling ear-to-ear, clearly enjoying the atmosphere and having both Bucky and his team-mates— his _friends_ — all together at once for a loose evening.

Bucky was having fun, yes. But he also had _plans_ to put into motion.

Which is why when Sam’s rant about something to do with reality television began to distract Natasha from the conversation she’d been engrossed in with Steve and Bucky, Bucky took the opportunity to not-so-subtly press the back of his body into Steve’s front, right there where they stood.

Almost immediately there was a hand on his hip, holding, touching, but not pushing away.

Steve hummed nonchalantly. “Whatcha’ doing there, Buck?”

“Hm?” Bucky responded, feigning innocence, almost comically. “What do you mean, Stevie?”

Steve let out a gruff half-chuckle and kissed the top of Bucky’s head, but he tightened his grip on Bucky’s hip.

“You know, all of these people _might_ start to think something’s up when they catch a whiff inappropriately aroused Alpha.”

Bucky smirked to himself and slowly set his glass down on the cocktail table next to them. He turned his body around and looked up at Steve’s face, lowering his lashes, giving Steve a meaningful look.

“Well, maybe we should get _away_ from all of these people.” The alcohol in his veins allowed him the courage to lean in, to press his hip into Steve’s thigh and raise a hand up to the square of Steve’s sternum. The concept of subtlety wasn’t exactly consistent with Bucky’s goals at the moment. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

He could hear Steve’s sharp intake of breath then, feel it under his palm. Bucky had thought this night out well in advance— he _had_ — but when actually faced with executing his plans for a semi-public seduction, he found that he was less concerned with drawing Steve into a slow tease that ended in passion and more concerned with wanting to see Steve’s resolve break cleanly in half. 

Bucky leaned in further until the heat of Steve’s hard, muscular frame was pressed almost fully against his side. He watched Steve’s dark eyes flicker in a way that looked like he was trying to parse out a puzzle, make some sort of calculation. Eventually Steve set his glass down next to Bucky’s, and he pulled their bodies together with one hand up against the floor of Bucky’s spine.

“You want me to fuck you,” Steve said quietly into Bucky’s ear. His tone was flat, controlled, and it sounded like he was merely making a very interested observation.

Steve’s woodsy natural scent, which Bucky had become so very attuned to, began to take on an edge of char the way it did whenever Steve became aroused. Bucky shivered and shifted his weight. Despite all of his former confidence, his plans to lure Steve into a measured seduction right there on the lower floors of Stark Tower, Bucky’s voice caught in his throat. All he could do was nod, dumbly. _Smooth, Barnes._

When Steve’s finger caught Bucky’s lower chin and gently tilted his face up, a clear and non-verbal order to maintain eye contact, Bucky knew that their body language and obvious intensity were starting to edge across the line of what was and was _not_ appropriate in their public setting. There were probably a few people staring, already. Bucky didn’t care.

“Tonight, _here_. Now,” Steve continued, like he was repeating Bucky’s unspoken thoughts back to him to make sure he had it right. “Not when we get home, here. In the tower.”

Bucky released a hot breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding and tried to stop his eyes from fluttering shut. “Not—” he started, licking his dry lips, “not on the team floors.”

He was feeling more than a little worked-up but Bucky knew that his implication was clear: _Not somewhere too private. Take me somewhere dangerous._

Steve’s burnt cedar scent suddenly rolled off of him in one giant wave, a blast of sensation, and although it wasn’t as strong as something like rut scent, Bucky knew it was more than enough to garner notice. From the halfway self-conscious look that crossed Steve’s face for a moment, Steve knew it, too.

Bucky watched him look over to Natasha and Sam, who were continuing their conversation while shooting the occasional amused glance over at the couple. Knowing. Steve gave them a terse half-nod and then scanned the edges of the room with his eyes, apparently looking for the best or nearest exit.

The next sixty seconds were a little bit of a blur for Bucky. Steve guided him to the far side of the atrium towards a large set of double doors, which Bucky knew from working in the tower led to an emergency stairwell. Neither of them looked back into the room as Steve led him through the doors, hastily, and instead of being shoved up against the wall like Bucky expected, Steve ushered him up the stairs.

“Next floor,” Steve said – _commanded_. “Go, sugar.”

Bucky nodded, bewildered, and did as instructed. Steve stayed inches behind him the entire time with a hand always touching some part of his back or hips. When they got to the next floor Steve opened the doors and led them out into a low-lit, empty hallway. The conferencing floor.

“Steve,” Bucky breathed, his voice hitching a little in excitement.

Steve walked around him and led the way to the nearest door, jiggling the handle and finding it conveniently open.

“In, Buck.”

Bucky felt entirely out of breath already, taken by Steve’s sudden grasp of control over the whole situation, but he didn’t waste any time before obeying. This floor and these rooms were familiar to Bucky– he’d attended several meetings in them over the years– but the fact that Steve might actually be about to _fuck_ him in one of these places of business made his insides turn to jelly. Once they were in, Steve shut the door behind him and lowered the blinds over the windows facing the hallway.

And then it was nothing but the two of them. The room was dead quiet, save for their breathing and the muted sounds of music coming from the floor below them. There was a large, wooden conference table in the middle, with about a dozen chairs. Steve did not make to turn on the overhead lights and neither did Bucky, but the light of the moon and the city streaming in through the enormous windows provided an almost eerie source of gleam and luminance, more than enough to see each other by. Bucky found himself standing awkwardly in the middle of it all, but he didn’t much care about whether he was looking silly once he saw the way Steve was making his way towards him– _stalking_ towards him. Predator on prey.

“Steve,” he breathed again, uselessly, like the name alone was going to save him.

Steve pulled Bucky into him, pressing their bodies together hard.

“This what you wanted, Buck?” he asked, voice filled with gravel and want. Bucky could feel the firm ridge of the erection that had already begun to form in Steve’s pants, and he knew his own situation was much of the same. “You wanted me to take you somewhere we’re not supposed to be and _fuck you_?”

Before Bucky could respond– with _what_ , he didn’t even know– there was a hand on the back of his head, pulling him in and crushing his lips with Steve’s own. He couldn’t stop the helpless whine he spilled into the kiss. It was firm and closed-mouth but still wet, still dirty, still enough to communicate the display of dominance that Steve clearly intended it to be. Bucky let his eyes fall shut.

It lasted only for a moment before Steve pulled back, and Bucky tried to chase the sweet contact almost subconsciously. But then it wasn’t just Steve’s lips that were gone but his hands, his body heat, and when Bucky opened his eyes he found Steve pulling out a chair from the conference table about ten feet away. When Bucky went to follow, Steve raised a halting hand.

“Stay there.”

Bucky stumbled a bit but stopped where he was, did as he was told. He gave Steve an uncertain, questioning look, and the Alpha responded by raising his index finger in a ‘one’ gesture– his signal for Bucky to stay where he was, to wait patiently for Steve’s next piece of direction.

Then Bucky watched as Steve, slowly and calmly, took off his own suit jacket and draped it over the back of the chair. His waistcoat followed behind. Bucky stood frozen in his staring. His jaw was slack. Steve loosened his tie and then finally sat down, reclining in the chair. Steve put one elbow on the armrest casually and leaned a bit to the side, biting down on the end of his thumb. He looked Bucky up and down as though considering carefully what he wanted to do with him next.

“Strip.”

The sound of Bucky’s own heartbeat thundered against his eardrums. He remained unmoving for a long moment, continuing to stare at Steve. Steve stared back at him.

“What?” Bucky worked out, barely, weakly.

“You heard me.” And it was true; Bucky had heard him completely. “ _Strip_. You want my cock so badly that you can’t wait until we get home to get it? Alright… but you’re gonna have to _work_ for it, Buck.”

The soft lighting floating in from the world outside cast a surreal, blue light over Steve’s face and body in the dark room. There were equal shadows for each inch of light that illuminated his face, that shone on the blond of his beard. The visual of it all made Bucky feel like they were existing on their own fantasy plane rather than back in reality, back where there were other people and places and sounds. None of those other things had a space in this room.

Clearly sensing Bucky’s nerves— however needless they might have been— Steve gave him an encouraging smile. It didn’t quite fit with the rest of his present persona, his halo of dominance and surety, and because of that it felt like it was a very secret smile just for Bucky. It was a reminder that— although what they were doing right now may be new— this was still their same togetherness. It was still just Steve and Bucky, and everything else was not needed. Everything else could fall away.

Here, in this conference room, only they existed.

With a shaky but earnest smile, Bucky began to remove his suit. He fumbled with the jacket at first and tried to multi-task, shimmying out of it while using one hand to loosen his tie. It was all a bit clumsy and almost definitely not as sexy as Steve deserved, but now that Bucky had worked himself up to it, it was like he couldn’t wait to get them both out of their clothes— to get into and under each other’s skin.

“Slower,” Steve said. “Breathe, and take it slower. I like to watch you.”

Bucky stopped and closed his eyes for a moment. As he drew in a centering breath, he reminded himself why he had done this in the first place, why he had made all these little plans that Steve had latched onto with such vigor. Bucky wanted make Steve _lose it_ again, the way he had the night after the encounter at the supermarket. He wanted to make Steve want him so badly that he didn’t have the headspace to think about anything _other_ than Bucky.

So Bucky backed himself up mentally and slowed it all down, just like Steve had asked. One by one, he removed each article of clothing, laying each item carefully across the back of the nearest chair.

Bucky had never stripped for someone before, but with Steve, it felt easy and exciting and more than a little intoxicating. Bucky was surprised but enthralled by how much he found that he liked it. His suit, his belt, his socks and shoes— each item came away and left behind the smallest extra bit of heavy-feeling freedom. It was as though his own slow motions were nothing but a spoon dragging him through thick molasses. By the time he had finally removed his briefs, the atmosphere in the room had brought him down almost to a feeling of being drugged.

From over in his chair Steve drank Bucky in with eyes, gaze roving over his body with hunger, and Bucky realized that he could now smell the scent of his own arousal. He was wet. Steve wasn’t even touching him— wasn’t even naked, not in the slightest— but Bucky already felt like he was mainlining desire and it was like a shot of adrenaline, penetrating the warm haze that had settled over him before. Bucky’s Alpha was watching him and wanting him and he wanted to _maul_ Steve, watch him come and come apart, but he restrained himself for the time being and focused on finishing the show. He had planned this, after all.

Bucky gave Steve his best attempt at a shy, flirty smile and turned slowly, stopping only when his naked backside was fully facing Steve.

Behind him, out of sight, Bucky could hear Steve suck in a stuttering breath. He went on to hold it for what felt like an eternity. Bucky smiled to himself, and only to himself.

He waited a beat and then turned his neck, tossing Steve a look over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised.

In an instant Steve was out of his chair and _on_ Bucky. He got both of his big hands around Bucky’s hips and spun him, pressing Bucky’s naked chest firmly against Steve’s still-clothed body. The rough friction of Steve’s dress shirt against his sensitive nipples made Bucky gasp. A little off-balance at the quick movement, he braced his hands against Steve’s abs and felt the muscles that were taut and hard under the cotton of the shirt. Bucky reveled in it; he felt absolutely _surrounded_ by Steve in all the best ways, deliciously smothered with his scent and his body heat and his touch.

“Oh, _sweetheart_ ,” Steve breathed, all disbelief and hot breath against Bucky’s skin. The pet name made Bucky’s breath hitch; Steve used it rarely, and only when he was experiencing a certain kind of appetite, feeling a certain kind of way. _Sweetheart_ never failed to make Bucky feel heavy and sweet and sticky, like floating in warm, warm honey. “You got yourself ready for me?”

Bucky felt the scratch of Steve’s beard against the side of his face when he nodded. “Surprise?”

Slowly, the large hands holding Bucky’s hips moved down and around to his ass. With one hand Steve groped a cheek solidly in his palm, spreading him apart and open to the cool air of the conference room. He used his other hand to seek out the plug nestled in Bucky’s ass, and when he eventually ran his fingers lightly over the light blue, jeweled base of it he let out a deep and soulful _groan_. The sound reverberated in Bucky’s own chest.

“ _Fuck_ , baby,” Steve moaned against Bucky’s mouth. They weren’t really kissing, not quite; Steve was only teasing him with the ghost of his blood-warm lips and steamy exhales. “I love you so much. You have no _idea_ what you do to me. You really been planning this? Try’na get me to fuck you here, where all those people might know?”

Any answer Bucky might have had was promptly choked off by the feeling of Steve pressing down on the base of the plug, pushing it further into Bucky, right up against his prostate. The action was controlled but brutal, and it elicited a moan of shock and delight from Bucky. Steve swallowed every note with a commanding kiss, fucking into Bucky’s mouth with his tongue.

Steve finally pulled their mouths apart with a tug in Bucky’s hair, rough but still light, pulling his head to the side.

“ _Tell_ me,” he demanded, wrecked and hot and all sloppy accent against Bucky’s ear. “Tell me, Buck. Tell me what you been wantin’ and I _will give it to you_.”

Bucky whimpered too loudly and attempted to form a coherent response, or even just a thought at all. He’d been doing his best impression of a confident vixen only moments ago, so this sudden helplessness with words was almost embarrassing. It felt like Steve might have actually been ten feet tall. Bucky wanted to drown in him.

“Wanna—” Bucky managed, “wanna suck you.”

Steve growled a deep and pleased noise of approval into Bucky’s ear and he pushed on the plug again, but the pressure was mostly just a tease.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, feigning like he was considering a particularly interesting proposal. “You wanna get that pretty mouth on my cock?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Bucky moaned. He was feeling needy and maybe the slightest bit frustrated and had stopped trying to hide the desperation in his voice. “Please, _please_.”

He felt Steve’s smile against the side of his face, the light tug of his hand in Bucky’s hair.

“So fucking _perfect_ for me, swear to god, Buck.”

Bucky let the warmth of the praise wash over him, let it slow him down. Whenever Steve said those kinds of things to him, whenever he was just _like_ this with Bucky, the feelings were soft and all golden shades that were all at once familiar and so, so _new_. But that was what it was like, with Steve; every day was new. Every moment, every time.

Steve grasped the base of the plug, pulling on it a little playfully like he was going to actually take it out, before stopping short. Bucky keened— too loud, probably, again— as he felt the metal tug against his rim. His hands scrambled for purchase against Steve’s abdomen, but then Steve’s body was suddenly gone completely.

Bucky whined at the loss, until he opened his eyes to see Steve settling back down into the chair and spreading his long legs wide, leaving the perfect little space for Bucky to kneel between them.

“Go on,” he told Bucky, eyes wanting and eager and waiting but he was smiling almost teasingly, still showing his control over the situation. “Come ‘ere. You ask me for something sounding that pretty and you can have _whatever_ you want, baby.”

Bucky’s mouth went dry, but he hurried forward and onto his knees, overcome with a sudden and primal need to please Steve and to have Steve and to be had by Steve, every way he could get it.

“Wanna make you feel good,” Bucky rasped. He ran his hands up Steve’s clothed and muscular thighs and over the prominent outline of his erection, until they at last arrived at his belt. Bucky had blown Steve dozens of times before, but tonight his heart was in his throat and his entire body was buzzing. His fingers clumsily worked at the opening of the belt but they tripped, repeatedly.

“Oh, _Buck_ ,” Steve said adoringly, covering Bucky’s stumbling hands with one of his own, large and steady. He cupped Bucky’s face and titled his chin up until their eyes met. Even in the heat of play and intensity and their own little bubble of desire, Steve’s gaze was nothing but sincere. “You always make me feel good.”

Bucky listened and allowed a shy smile to grow over his face as he turned his head, exhaling a shaky breath, and then placed a chaste kiss against Steve’s open palm. He caught the comforting scent of woodsmoke and bergamot wafting from the scent glands on the inside of his Alpha’s wrist.

More relaxed, Bucky finally got the belt open and made easier work of the button and zipper, and then he was reaching into Steve’s underwear and pulling out his thick cock. Bucky’s mouth watered.

“There you go,” Steve cooed, petting his hair.

Relieved and excited to finally be where he was, Bucky wrapped both hands around Steve’s shaft and gave it a few firm, slow tugs. Steve swore under his breath and screwed his eyes shut, groaning as he threw his head back against the chair.

The reaction gave Bucky that extra bit of confidence as he leaned forwards and licked the tiny bead of pre-come forming on the tip of Steve’s cock. He closed his eyes and took a moment to savor the taste, and when he looked up again Steve was back to looking at him. His eyes were nearly black with arousal, lips parted as he breathed heavily. Bucky preened under the attention and maintained the eye contact, taking the tip of Steve’s cock between his lips.

“Fuck, baby. You look so good. Dear _god_ , sexiest fucking thing I ever saw, I swear it.”

He would have smiled around Steve’s cock if he could have, but the girth of it had Bucky’s mouth stretched completely taut, as always. He instead hummed around it and let the sound of Steve’s praising moans soak into him. Pleased with himself, Bucky set out to work up a rhythm with his hands and mouth.

Bucky knew what Steve liked in a blowjob by this point in their relationship, so Bucky gave his all, made it wet and hot and sloppy and more slow than fast. He fit what he could into his mouth and let both hands run over the rest of the shaft, the slide of his flesh and metal over hot, silken skin made easier by Bucky’s drool dripping sloppy down Steve’s cock. The erotic cacophony of his slurping noises seemed to echo around the room, and the obscenity of it must have been getting to Steve because his hips would buck up every so often, minutely— enough to surprise Bucky, but not quite enough choke him. He made a mental note to ask Steve for that, one day soon.

Steve showered him non-stop with a litany of praise while he worked, and he used his hands to lovingly brush the long strands of Bucky’s hair back whenever they fell onto his face. Just when Bucky noticed Steve’s breathing begin to grow quicker Steve pulled him off with gentle fingers carded through his hair.

“Look at me,” he ordered, voice deep and throaty, demanding but not unkind in the least.

Bucky obeyed, and when he met Steve’s nearly pitch-black eyes he could easily imagine what the larger man saw: Bucky’s lips, red and swollen, wet, dripping with his own spit, wholly and sinfully debauched. Steve brushed a calloused thumb across Bucky’s cheekbone in a tender, almost soothing gesture. His eyes remained dark but his expression began to soften inexplicably.

“You are goddamn _perfect_ , Bucky Barnes,” Steve said. His tone was sober, out-of-place in a room so drenched with the scent of arousal. Steve spoke the words so slowly, like he was trying to make sure Bucky not only heard but _listened_ and was convinced of every part of it. “ _Perfect_ ,” he repeated, “do you understand me?”

The unexpected chill that shot down Bucky’s spine contrasted like frost over fire with the warmth that spread across his cheeks. In general, Bucky was a confident enough guy when it came to his looks, his skills in bed, whatever else it was that Steve probably liked about him. But faced with such an honest, sincere sentiment— spoken when Steve had Bucky kneeling between his legs, vulnerable and open— Bucky didn’t have a response. He could see that Steve was expectantly awaiting some sort of confirmation, affirmation, and Bucky could only nod.

“Mm, good,” Steve hummed. He gave Bucky a small but sweet smile. “Do not forget that. _Ever_.”

He leaned forward and down to plant a kiss on Bucky’s forehead. A button on Steve’s shirt grazed the tip of Bucky’s nose in the process, and he was reminded that Steve’s wet erection was still the only part of him not clothed.

“On the table,” Steve ordered, voice suddenly back to his previous dark tone. He let his fingers slip from Bucky’s hair. “Hands and knees. Facing away.”

Before Bucky knew it his legs had him obeying, and he was walking over to the conference table without an ounce of hesitation or protest. The table was cold and hard beneath his knees when he began to climb up, but it did not bother him; the endorphins pulsing through in Bucky’s brain reduced it to nothing more than another sensation.

It wasn’t until he was fully on the table, hands and knees like Steve had asked, that Bucky realized how compromising of a position it really was. He couldn’t see Steve behind him, but he knew Steve could see _everything_ of Bucky: every inch of his naked body, the way his slick had started to leak out in the slightest past the plug, the way his dick hung freely between his legs — all of it, there on display in a cold conference room in a fucking public building while two hundred people milled around none-the-wiser one floor below them.

For a fleeting moment Bucky wanted to curl in on himself, hide from the flush of humiliation that had begun to creep over him. He couldn’t stop the quiet whimper that escaped him as he drew his shoulders in, made himself small— but then the cold was suddenly gone and Steve was _on_ him, blanketing him with his body, furnace-hot even through his still-buttoned shirt.

“Uh-uh, no,” Steve said lowly in his ear. “None of that. You remember what we just went over, don’t you? You are _perfect_ , baby.” He pressed a kiss to Bucky’s neck. “Heart and body and soul.”

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to nod in response.

“Tell me,” Steve commanded, squeezing Bucky’s hip firmly to let him know it wasn’t a request.

Bucky kept his eyes shut to the world and willed himself to relax once again, to focus on the sensation of Steve’s hands smoothing over the planes of his naked stomach, keeping him grounded. He was caged in by Steve’s huge body, yes, but it was like safety, like comfort. He melted into all the things it made him feel: loved and small and delicate — vulnerable, yes, but safe in his Alpha’s arms. The knowledge that Steve would not only never hurt him but would also _protect_ him from hurt had always done something for Bucky on a basic, primal level. He wanted to give himself over to Steve in every possible way.

“I’m perfect,” Bucky echoed. He was still finding it difficult to talk and the refrain sounded weak, but he’d _said_ it, feeling like there were no limits to what he would do to please Steve in that moment.

“Mm. Again, louder.”

It was more than a little curious, the way the sensations coursing through Bucky’s veins were both new and familiar at the same time. Steve Rogers would forever make Bucky feel small with his body but enormous with his words, but there was something different about his Alpha’s affections tonight; something more. It felt like Steve would do anything in the world in that moment if it meant taking care of him, every part of him — ‘heart and body and soul’.

 _“I’m perfect,”_ Bucky repeated, louder and stronger this time, just like Steve had asked.

He felt Steve smile wickedly into his neck, right over his scent gland, which Steve then licked over with a hot swipe of his tongue.

“That’s right. You’re perfect, and you’re _mine_ , and nothing’s gonna change that. So… I’m going to play with you now.” He moved a hand down to touch Bucky’s dick lightly, just a brush of fingers. “That okay honey? Can I play with you while you stay like this?”

Bucky heard the tease but also the question, and he shivered visibly while fighting back a moan at Steve’s words. He was _Steve’s_ , Steve’s to play with. The thought was heady and thrilling.

When he realized Steve was waiting for him to answer he nodded his affirmative response, but a light pinch to his hip told him that Steve wanted verbal confirmation.

“Yes,” Bucky urged, voice heavy with an almost embarrassing degree of desperation. “Please.”

“Mm, sweet baby,” Steve cooed into the sweat-chilled skin of Bucky’s back. Chaste kisses were dropped on either of his shoulder blades. “Your knees hurting?”

“No.” Bucky drew in a staggered breath. He could feel his dick start to drip pre-come down onto the conference table. “F-feelin’ so _good_ , Stevie.”

Steve hummed contentedly and turned Bucky’s head towards him for a kiss, open-mouthed and hot and biting, before pulling away. Before Bucky could mourn the loss Steve began kissing down his spine, almost worshipfully, his hands petting down the skin of Bucky’s front and sides as he progressed downwards. When he reached Bucky’s tailbone, he gave Bucky’s left cheek a surprisingly powerful bite.

Bucky squeaked out a moan at the sensation, shocking himself. He wasn’t usually one to get off on pain, but the thought of _Steve_ biting him, anywhere on his body, using those powerful Alpha jaws — _super soldier_ jaws — to leave any kind of mark or physical impression gave him a thrill that shot straight to his dick. Steve chuckled low in his throat and proceeded to place a wet, open-mouthed kiss over the spot where he had bit down.

Bucky had almost forgotten about the plug in his ass by the time Steve’s hand came up to play with it.

“Love that you did this for me,” Steve murmured quietly into Bucky’s skin, like he was talking only to himself. He grasped the base of the plug and began pushing it in gently, pulling it out half an inch, only to let it sink back in again. He was really just toying with Bucky’s ass at this point, half-fucking the metal toy in and out of his slick. “Look at _you_ , sweetheart— all plugged up and leaking out besides. You must be so fucking _wet_ in there. Must have been feeling it all night, thinking about how you wanted my cock in you. Were you, Buck? Were you thinking about my cock when you were sitting on this little plug in the car over here? When you were walking around on my arm, playing Cap’s sweet little date while I introduced you to all those important people?”

And oh, _fuck_ , neither of them had ever actually invoked the name of Captain America in bed before, and Bucky was blindsided with the fresh wave of sharp arousal that flowed through him at the mention. The filth rolling out of Steve’s mouth had Bucky’s skin buzzing all over, like his insides wanted to crawl out of him through his pores and melt into a puddle, right there on the conference room table.

“ _Fuck_ , Steve. Yes— _yes_ , I was thinking about it.”

“Mm… and what exactly was it you were thinking about?”

“Y-your _cock_ , Steve,” Bucky whined. “Was thinkin’ about your cock in me.”

Steve groaned out his appreciation for Bucky’s response, and then he was grasping both of Bucky’s ass cheeks in his huge hands and pushing them apart. Lewd, wide. There were a solid five seconds of cold air assaulting some of the most vulnerable places on Bucky’s body before he felt the wet tip of Steve’s tongue warm against his rim, circling where it was stretched and taut around the metal plug.

“Mm,” Steve hummed against his ass, like a thought. “’Bout time for us to take this out, then, don’t you think? Can’t have anything in the way of me gettin’ to eat you all up.”

Bucky couldn’t stop the way he pushed back his ass in response to the tease, and Steve chuckled at his eagerness. He gave Bucky a whisper-soft kiss on one ass cheek and then, slowly, pulled the plug out of Bucky’s body as promised. The toy had been inside him for hours by this point, ever since he got out of the shower in the late afternoon, so when the widest point of the plug passed through his rim the stretch and slight burn of it was almost new again. Bucky reveled in the feeling.

“Damn, baby,” Steve breathed out. He sounded impressed. “Almost as thick as me, isn’t it?”

“ _Uh-huh,”_ Bucky keened, nodding with his head hanging low between his shoulders. He’d known when he planned this that if he _really_ wanted to get himself ready for Steve, he was going to have to be serious about the size of the plug holding him open.

Once the plug was out completely Steve placed it on a cocktail napkin he’d apparently conjured from the pocket of his pants.

“Not quite as big, though. I’m gonna have to make sure you’re good and open for me.”

Then, before Bucky could even moan out his desperate appreciation for Steve’s plan, Steve’s mouth descended on him and wasted no time attacking Bucky’s entrance with his lips and tongue and spit and sounds.

“ _Fuck_ , Steve!”

Steve adopted something like a half-rhythm in his assault, alternating between licking and sucking and fucking Bucky with his tongue, sometimes just kissing his hole filthy and wet like he was kissing Bucky’s mouth. The roughness of Steve’s beard chafed Bucky’s sensitive skin and a constant, low growl emanated from Steve’s chest as he ate Bucky out. All of the combined sensations quickly overtook Bucky; he could not have focused on anything else if he tried. It was like he was sitting in a dark but warm room, unable to see a thing save for the strip of light shining through the crack beneath the door.

Steve eventually backed his mouth off so he could make room for his fingers. The faint burn of the stretch was more than Bucky had expected at first, considering how open he was already, until he realized that Steve was starting off with three fingers instead of his typical two. It was a delightfully uncharacteristic move for Steve, and the thought that his Alpha was so desperate to get inside of him that he was willing to push the limits just a little and trust that Bucky could take it— that he was _made_ to take this, for Steve—made Bucky’s entire body flush and spill even more slick over Steve’s thick fingers.

“Fuck, _sweetheart_. You’re good and tight no matter what we do, aren’t you?”

Steve held Bucky’s hip firmly in place in one hand when he began to fuck his sweet spot with the fingers of his other. The harsh moaning noise Bucky made when he felt Steve’s tongue slip in alongside the three thick digits was loud enough that it might have worried him if not for the bright light flashing behind Bucky’s eyelids, bursting and threatening to bleed out into the room around them and paint them both in a hundred thousand colors. He was so close already.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky whined in warning. “Steve, I’m— _going to_ —”

His sounds were apparently enough to spark some kind of reaction in Steve, who was very suddenly growling much louder than before. He ripped his mouth away from its place of worship at Bucky’s wet entrance and moved himself all the way up Bucky’s body, draping himself over his Omega’s smaller form and covering Bucky, _surrounding_ Bucky, just the way he had done earlier. He buried his face in Bucky’s neck like he just couldn’t help it and began to nip and suck possessively, paying extra attention to Bucky’s scent gland. Then Bucky barely had time to process the fourth finger entering him before Steve was doubling down on his speed, on the _intensity_ of his ministrations, and the new tempo almost something akin to vicious.

There was not a thing left for Bucky to do that could possibly help keep himself quiet anymore. Steve’s hard chest was perfectly pressed into Bucky’s back and the low noises rolling out of it reverberated in Bucky’s very bones, filled the spaces between his ribs with nothing but _Steve_. Somewhere buried in Bucky’s misfiring brain there was a pleasant thought, poetic, that maybe the noises he and Steve individually let loose might mingle and marry and harmonize just right in the air hanging around them. But the reality was even _better_ : the way that the dissonance born between Steve’s deep, rumbling growls and Bucky’s high whimpers— wavelengths heard from somewhere outside of Bucky’s body— made the neurons in the deepest part of his mind spark with an ethereal and uneven energy. It was a good and _right_ imbalance, Bucky realized, in some innate part of his consciousness. Steve— his Alpha— would level it out in time.

The coil in Bucky’s belly reached critical compression.

“Steve, _Alpha!_ —I’m—”

“Come for me, Bucky. _Now_.”

Then the light behind Bucky’s eyes expanded like the big bang and the only thing left for him to see was white. His orgasm had both a certain viciousness and viscosity to it, and Bucky held onto a silent scream as his untouched dick coated the conference table with release. His arms shook, so violently that they eventually gave out at the end, and then Bucky had no choice but to let his head fall down and rest heated and sweaty against his folded forearms. It was only as he was beginning to come down from his high that his brain registered what he had said, lost to passion— the way he had moaned and begged for _‘Alpha’._

Bucky forced himself to spend a minute on his breathing. As he was trying to slowly attune his senses back into reality, he felt Steve press a warm kiss to the back of Bucky’s neck before standing up straight, removing the heat of his body and the friction of his shirt, but not going far. Steve’s strong hands on Bucky’s hips remained behind as their only two points of contact when Steve backed himself away, and for a brief moment Bucky felt awash with a lovely sort of vulnerability, with the knowledge that Steve was probably looking down at his melted pool of boyfriend and feeling satisfied with himself.

But then— then Bucky picked up on the sound of Steve’s exhales stilling completely, growling gone silent, and everything very suddenly crashed over Bucky like a ton of bricks as he realized what Steve was looking at— the _implication_ of the physical position they had arrived in. Steve was looking at Bucky: knees spread, spine arched, face down. Ass _up_. Bared.

However unintentionally Bucky had arrived there, Steve was looking at the vision of an Omega, _presenting_ for his Alpha.

It was the most singularly intimate thing an Omega could give to their partner. It wasn’t something you did during a one-night stand, wasn’t something you saw in porn, wasn’t even something most bonded couples did on the regular. It was a normal urge for Omegas to want to do if they were sharing their heat with an Alpha (was, in fact, the traditional position for bonding), but even then it was reserved for only the most deeply trusted partners. _Presenting_ was something uniquely special, born from a place of primal instinct and a kind of need that was emotional as much as it was chemical. Most Omegas— if they ever did it all— presented for one and _only_ one Alpha their entire life.

Bucky had done it for Steve during the one, unexpected Heat they’d shared. And although Bucky knew they both understood how entirely inadvertently it was that he had arrived in that same position now— on _Tony Stark’s conference table_ , no less— Bucky could still feel the reckless _want_ that the implication awakened in his own lizard brain. He could only guess at the havoc it might be wreaking on Steve.

But he could not bring himself to move. While Bucky was definitely concerned about causing anxiety for Steve, who was still working through his struggle with his own primal instincts as an Alpha, the last thing he wanted was to hastily move out of the position and make Steve think that Bucky didn’t trust him with it. Bucky _did_. So Bucky remained still and closed his eyes and kept focus on his breathing, leaving the ball in Steve’s court.

Behind him, Steve sounded as though he was slowly regaining a very tentative control over his own breathing. His gaze continued to burn into Bucky, and he brushed a gentle palm— reverent, and almost imperceptibly trembling— over the heated skin of Bucky’s bare lower back. Steve said nothing, and Bucky could not see his face, but he knew it in his bones that Steve was regarding what lay before him with a nervous kind of awe and an incredible kind of _need_.

And then Bucky was on his back.

His eyes flew open and his head spun. Enough sweat had dewed across his skin that he would have slipped around on the smooth surface of the conference table if not for Steve’s hand holding tight onto his right hip, and the quick but effective way that Steve manipulated one of Bucky’s legs to wrap around his waist. Steve was still completely clothed with only his belt undone, pants and underwear shoved halfway down his thighs, and Bucky’s bare calf was free to rub up under the shirt and against the blazing-hot skin of his Alpha’s lower back.

The initial stretch of Steve fucking into his body was searing, as it always was, no matter how much prep he’d had or how fast Steve went or how much Bucky was dripping wet. Bucky loved it. Steve continued to pull Bucky's smaller body towards him with the hand on his hip, a ravenous look painting his face as he watched his cock slowly sink in. For all of the palpable nerve and need that Bucky had sensed radiating off of the Alpha only seconds before, there was nothing left now except for the need.

There would be fingertip bruises on Bucky’s hipbones for days. The thought of it made him feel just like treasure.

A mixture of moonlight and New York City’s luminance filtered in through the windows to drape across Steve’s face, grabbing onto his fair skin like that’s where it belonged. His large frame hulked over Bucky, as it always did when they fucked like this. He was gorgeous; breathtaking, in a very literal manner that robbed Bucky’s lungs of what little air he could get.

When Steve finally bottomed out it was with a deep, appreciative groan, squeezing his eyes shut for only a moment before opening them and looking up to Bucky’s face for the first time since he had entered him. Bucky opened his mouth to speak, for the first time in a long time, and found that he had to work through the wreck of his own voice to do it.

“I love you,” he said.

He watched the sea of hunger recede from Steve’s features just like an ocean wave; not gone, but momentarily subsiding. It gave way for a look that Bucky had become very familiar with over the past several months, in their time together. It was the look of Steve: disbelieving of his own reality, still not quite understanding how Bucky was both here and in love with him, but allowing himself the greed of having it all the same.

Steve released a heavy breath and leaned forward, down, laying his huge body across Bucky’s. Bucky wrapped his arms across Steve’s broad shoulders, hungry for the contact. Steve pressed their mouths together in a kiss that tasted of depth and gratitude and the fast-returning tide of hunger.

“Buck,” Steve spoke, pulling his lips away. It was quiet, like the very beginning of a prayer. He cupped the side of Bucky’s jaw in one hand and locked their eyes together. “Baby… My sweet, gorgeous boy. You have no idea how much I love you.”

He held Bucky’s silent eye contact for a few moments longer, blue irises gone dark, like he wanted to make sure the weight of his words sunk in. And then something flashed across Steve’s face and the naked desire was back, hot and intense like it had never left to begin with.

One more wet, sloppy kiss and Steve was pulling up again, his hand returning to hold Bucky’s hip. He watched Bucky’s face carefully as he began to drag his cock out, slowly— _so_ slowly, like he was trying to earn a desperate reaction.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky moaned out when Steve dragged his thick cock purposefully over his prostate. He wasn’t fucking it yet but just teasing the pressure, which Bucky was glad of, since he was still sensitive from his previous orgasm. Steve drew out Bucky’s moan by wrapping one big hand around his neglected dick and giving it just a few firm, long strokes.

“Oh, honey, look at _you_ ,” Steve cooed, pulling almost all the way out before sinking back in. Bucky tried not to question why he found the condescension in his tone so hot. “So damn _sweet_ for me, taking my cock the way you do, letting me have you like this.”

A few more painfully slow drags of Steve’s cock in and out of him and Bucky was starting to feel a little crazy. He needed more.

“Steve,” Bucky groaned, hands tangling in his own long hair just to hold on to something. “I’m ready. Please, _fuck_ me.”

Steve smirked and pushed all the way in to his hilt, then halted. He put one forearm flat on the table to support his own weight, then bent at the waist, sliding his other arm underneath Bucky and holding the back of his shoulder so he could pull him into Steve, perpendicular to Steve’s powerful hips, pressing Bucky in, down, _down_ over Steve’s cock as he began to fuck him in earnest.

It wasn’t gentle—not in the slightest—but there was an unmistakable tenderness in Steve’s roughness. His vigor and aggression was a potent sort of sweetness in and of itself. It felt like Steve was giving Bucky not just what he wanted, but what he _needed_ , and it was a heart full of raw devotion and sparks of brilliant, blinding light— just the way Bucky felt being all spread out on Tony Stark’s goddamn conference table, stripped bare so that Steve could fuck him the way Bucky should have it, taking everything he wanted from Bucky in return.

 _“This what you wanted, Buck?”_ Steve rumbled out, the teeth bared in his predatory smile making him look every bit like the big, bad wolf. Bucky couldn’t breathe. “Wanted my cock inside you — me fucking you? Yeah… _yeah_ , you wanted this. So glad you asked, baby. _So_ fucking glad, and I’m always gonna give you what you want.” He leaned his head down, nipped sharply at the shell of Bucky’s ear. _“Always gonna take care of my sweetheart.”_

Bucky was so wet he was dripping onto the floor, but the scent of Steve’s own need rolling off of him was so thick it felt almost tangible, like Bucky could reach out his hand and hold it in his palm and caress it; soothe it. Steve may have looked frayed at the edges by pleasure, but he radiated sheer _power_. He had Bucky easily pinned to the table— unyielding hand pushing down at his waist, dark hunger and possession flooding his gaze— and Bucky had only ever seen Steve look this powerful one other time: when he was in rut. But he wasn’t in rut now, he was unmistakably just _Steve_ , but right before Bucky tipped over the edge for a second time he had the thought that his Alpha might actually knot him tonight.

Steve bent down more so he could get both arms under Bucky’s back, pressing their bodies together by the backs of Bucky’s shoulders. His body covered Bucky’s, blanketing him, and he pressed his lips against Bucky’s ear almost harshly.

“What do you want? Huh, baby? You want me to make you come?”

“ _Nngh_ ,” Bucky whined, desperately. He felt like his body was being incinerated one cell at a time. “Yes, _please...”_

“Mm, yeah. I’ll make you come on this cock.” Steve’s beard was rubbing out the perfect amount of abrasion against Bucky’s neck. “You gonna be good for me afterwards? Lay there for me while I wet you up?”

 _Oh,_ Bucky’s mind lamented. _Fuck._ He was done. That was it.

All it took after hearing that extraordinary filth in his ear was three extra-hard snaps of Steve’s hips and then Bucky was coming with a scream of Steve’s name, public environment be damned. His dick—untouched yet again, save for the teasing drag of Steve’s clothing—shot almost embarrassingly hard over his own belly and Steve’s shirt. His inner walls clamped down around that cock with so much force that Bucky thought it must have hurt Steve.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Steve groaned, fucking him rabbit-fast now, hard and unforgiving, right through Bucky’s orgasm. “So fucking tight, I swear— _fuck_ , I’m—Jesus baby, sometimes when I’m in you I think the only reason I can remember my fuckin’— _shit_ —remember my own goddamn _name_ is because that’s the name you’re screaming.” Steve pulled all the way out and slammed back in. “ _Fuck_ , sweetheart, oh baby boy, your fucking _body_ , you’re making me come—”

Steve let go with a potent, animalistic sound as his hand shot down his own body. It had become a familiar motion to Bucky: the sight of Steve knotting his own fist. Despite Dr. Welsh’s voice in the back of his brain reminding Bucky that he wasn’t supposed to _expect_ anything from sex, one way or another, there was still a deeper, innate part of him that allowed a small stab of disappointment. He silenced it immediately.

Bucky let Steve fuck every last thought from his brain as he lay on the table in bliss, allowing himself be filled and saturated and satiated with Steve Rogers, thanking God for giving him this man.


	5. Scenes from a December (Part III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets spoiled, and their vacation finally arrives.

_December 15_

_Thursday - 2:15 P.M._

Elevators in medical buildings always smelled like rubbing alcohol and iodine, which were definitely not Bucky’s favorite. He breathed through his mouth instead of his nose as the elevator descended the fourteen levels from Dr. Pete’s office suite, down to the ground floor.

Bucky had left work early that day to catch his monthly blood work appointment. Unpleasantly sterile smells aside, he was breathing especially easy that afternoon, for two reasons. First, he had _finally_ wrapped up the enormous project he’d been working on in his lab for almost eight months, and he’d passed it off to the StarkTech testing department. Getting that load off his plate was a massive relief, and it came at the perfect time; he could now embark on his Vermont vacation (tomorrow!) with Steve and leave behind the weight of work on his shoulders. Second, the results of Bucky’s blood work had shown his hormone levels right where Dr. Pete had expected them to be, based on the time-table they were anticipating. No early Heat.

Bucky was more stress-free than he could remember feeling in six months.

As he stepped out of the elevator, Bucky immediately felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out to find a text message from Steve.

**[2:15 P.M.] Stevie:** Done at Pete’s yet?

Instead of walking out onto the cold, winter-time city streets, Bucky found a bench in the lobby and sat down to respond.

**[2:16 P.M.] Sent:** Yep, just finished.

 **[2:16 P.M.] Stevie:** Great. Any surprises?

Bucky knew Steve was referring to his blood work. He typed out his response knowing Steve would be relieved by the results, just as Bucky was.

**[2:17 P.M.] Sent:** Nope. Everything was where Dr. P thought it would be.

 **[2:18 P.M.] Sent:** He says I look on track for April, maybe February if it comes early.

Bucky watched his phone. There was no response from Steve for a while, and Bucky worried that he may have spooked him with details about their time-table. The two hadn’t talked about Bucky’s next Heat much at all since their first and only therapy visit with Dr. Welsh, but Bucky knew it was hanging over their heads. If his Heat came within the conservative margin of error that Dr. Pete had estimated, they could theoretically be dealing with it in less than 60 days. With it would come Steve’s rut, and if they didn’t make any significant, tangible progress on the knotting issue before then, they could very well be dealing with something they weren’t ready for emotionally. The pressure, however silent, was there.

His phone vibrated again just as he was pulling out his gloves to head out onto the street.

**[2:22 P.M.] Stevie:** Good to hear. You got any other plans this afternoon?

Bucky frowned. He wondered if Steve was going to ask him for a late lunch, and he wished he hadn't already eaten.

**[2:23 P.M.] Sent:** No. Was gonna come home for the day, help you out with the lighting installation.

 **[2:23 P.M.] Sent:** Why?

 **[2:24 P.M.] Stevie:** Because you have plans now.

 **[2:24 P.M.] Stevie:** _[Blue Serenity Spa]_ \- _You’ve Been Sent a Link on Google Maps!_

His confused frown deepened as he clicked the link. It took him to the location of some sort of day spa in northwest Brooklyn, not far from their apartment. Before Bucky could text back a _‘???’_ , another text from Steve came through.

**[2:25 P.M.] Stevie:** You have an open-ended appointment starting at 3:15 P.M. Any and all services you ask for. I got you scheduled for a massage already, but you can change that if you want.

 **[2:26 P.M.] Stevie:** They have my card info. Don’t you dare to even think about looking at the price list.

[ **2:26 P.M.] Stevie:** Better go catch the next train baby ;)

Flabbergasted, thumbs paralyzed and seemingly unable to type out another text, Bucky decided to just hit the call button on Steve’s contact. He placed the phone to his ear and he suddenly felt antsy as he waited for Steve to pick up. There was no ‘hello’ when the ringing stopped, only Steve’s teasing voice.

“I thought I told you to head for the train?”

“Steve,” Bucky began, emphatically. “What is this? You booked me a _spa appointment_?”

Steve was silent on the other end of the line for a long moment, and Bucky wondered if it was because he was more nervous than his confident communication let on.

“Yeah, angel. I did. Look,” Steve sighed, “you don’t have to go if you don’t want to, I shouldn’t have assumed you’d like that, I’m sorry. I just thought—”

“ _Woah_ ,” Bucky interjected. “Hang on, I never said I didn’t _like_ it. I just… I guess I don’t know why you want — why you think I deserved—”

“—You don’t know why I think you deserve to be pampered, Buck?” Steve interrupted, incredulous. “Really? After you just worked your ass off for _months_ to finish a project that no one else could have even dreamed of completing? The technology that Tony’s been yapping to me about since before I even knew you?”

“It’s still technically in R&D,” Bucky muttered, blushing. Steve had always been supportive and enthusiastic about Bucky’s engineering work, but it still never ceased to make him feel a little bashful when Steve got to raving about him and his skills.

“Yeah, and the finished product is going to be amazing, because Bucky fucking _Barnes_ developed it.”

Bucky laughed and fiddled with a thread on his sweater.

“You… you’re sure? I’ve never really been to a spa like that before, and it looked really nice on Google…”

“And it _will_ be nice for you, which is exactly what I want.”

“Stevie…” Bucky smiled to himself and shook his head, a little at a loss for words. “I really _was_ going to come home and help, you know. It takes more than two hands to put up some of those bigger fixtures.”

“Doesn’t have to be _your_ hands, though. That’s why Sam is here.” Sure enough, in the background of the phone call Bucky could hear Sam’s voice, hollering something that sounded a lot like, ‘go get a fucking rub down, Barnes!’

Steve chuckled, and then Bucky thought he could hear him walking away.

“Also,” Steve began, volume lower, “two nights ago you put a plug in your ass and begged me to nail you on Tony’s conference room table. I think treating my baby to a spa appointment is the _least_ I can do when you’ve just fulfilled multiple fantasies I didn’t even know I had.”

Bucky barked out a laugh at that. He looked down at the clock on his new smart watch—another gift from Steve—and realized that he really did have to head for the train if he was actually going to do this. He stood up and grabbed his bag.

“Alright… alright,” he conceded. Steve’s smile was almost audible through the phone. “You’ve convinced me. Thank you, Stevie.”

“No thanks necessary, baby. I wish you would let me treat you like this all the time, but I’ll take what I can get.”

Finally walking out onto the cold and busy sidewalk, Bucky was just about to say his goodbye and hang up when Steve chimed in again. 

“By the way, I just put in a call to Tony. You’ll be hearing from him very soon.”

Bucky’s stomach dropped. “Shit. Did he figure out what we did? I mean, cleanup was a bitch, and we definitely had to throw away that undershirt after using it as a towel, but I think we did a pretty good job covering our tracks? God, I’m gonna be in such deep shit with him—”

“No, nothing like that,” Steve chuckled. “I mean, there’s no way he _doesn’t_ know, but he also knows damn well that he better come to me first if he’s got a problem with it. Besides… He probably considers it payback.”

“Payback? For what?”

“A story for another time,” Steve promised. “Are you at the station yet?”

“I’m walking there right now.”

“Alright, I’ll let you go. Have a relaxing time, baby. You deserve it. And _use_ your time there, okay? I don’t want to see you home before six. Hell— keep ‘em ‘till they close, if you can manage it.”

“Okay,” Bucky laughed. “Thank you, Steve. Seriously… and I love you.”

“I love you, too, and I _really_ love you when you let me spoil you.” Bucky could practically hear Steve wink. “Bye, honey.”

As Bucky walked the familiar route to the subway station, his phone dinged again, this time from Tony.

**[2:44 P.M.] Tiny Snark:** I literally cannot look at your face after what you did to my conference room with your jackass boyfriend.

 **[2:44 P.M.] Tiny Snark:** Do not come in tomorrow.

 **[2:45 P.M.] Tiny Snark:** Consider it extra paid vacation, you disgusting pond scum.

 **[2:45 P.M.] Tiny Snark:** Seriously. I better not see you or your vile beau again until January.

Bucky probably looked like an idiot laughing so hard alone in public, but he didn’t care.

**[2:46 P.M.] Sent:** Thanks Tony. Merry Christmas.

 **[2:47 P.M.] Tiny Snark:** Yeah, and Happy fucking New Year.

Bucky stuffed his phone in his pocket and abandoned himself to his thoughts as he jogged down the steps into the station, marveling at the wonder that was his boyfriend. Sometimes, he still could not believe that Steve was _his_. Steve—who had not only been a supportive partner to Bucky from the very beginning, but who was also a powerful and attentive lover, and—most importantly—the single greatest source of Bucky’s joy. By the time he reached the subway platform, waiting for the train, the sudden enormity of his gratitude for Steve had begun to bubble up and spread within the depths of Bucky’s chest, and he felt fit to _combust_ with it. He had to remind himself just to breathe.

_How had he gotten so lucky?_

There was no longer a point to denying that Steve—among many, many other things—was definitely Bucky’s _sugar daddy_. Bucky had recently concluded the slow process of accepting that fact, and he’d moved on to the even slower process of allowing himself to _... want_ it. He knew that Steve was being entirely truthful when he said that he could afford everything he did for Bucky—and much, much more. The grand gestures, the little presents, the clothing… the _apartment renovation_ that must have cost upwards of a hundred grand? Bucky knew that none of it was even a drop in the bucket for Steve. Fighting back against Steve’s insistences—‘on principle’—just wasn’t worth it whenever Bucky had to see the let-down expression on Steve’s face as a result. So it had taken a while, but Bucky was finally learning to put his pointless pride aside and indulge in all the gifts Steve bestowed upon him.

But having an unreasonably attractive sugar daddy was not the reason Bucky considered himself so damned lucky—not even close. It was the profound _depth_ behind Steve’s motives for spoiling him that made it feel so significant, because showering him with lush and lavish things was only one of many methods Steve employed in pursuit of his greater desire: _taking care_ of Bucky.

Steve was constantly putting Bucky’s wants and needs at the forefront of his mind, trying to find new and better ways to be a good provider. Sometimes those tendencies would manifest themselves in grand or obvious ways. Other times, it was sexual. But _most_ of the time, it was the smallest, almost unnoticeable things Steve would do that made Bucky question what he had done in a past life to deserve such a partner. The third time that Bucky had come home after a particularly ridiculous day at the lab and found hand-made pasta on the dinner table (because Steve just _knew_ how to make pasta, for some reason), he realized without needing to ask that Steve—in all his unwavering attentiveness—had noticed that Bucky gravitated towards carb-heavy foods whenever he was stressed. Steve knew what Bucky wanted almost more than Bucky himself knew.

There was also a certain edge to Steve’s lust for caretaking. He liked telling Bucky what to _do_ —maybe just as much as Bucky liked being told. Steve was always giving him subtle commands, little orders to follow. Bucky himself got a certain kind of release from following Steve’s orders, and it gave him an opportunity to demonstrate his own love for Steve through devotion in-kind. Steve didn’t try to indulge that dynamic in every aspect of their lives together; it was usually limited to sexual situations, or sometimes situations that involved spoiling Bucky. Bucky also knew Steve only ever gave him an order if he knew it was something Bucky _wanted_ to do, and even then, Steve always gave Bucky some kind of out—even if it was wordless.

While Bucky was truly thankful for all that Steve did for him, he also knew that Steve never did any of it for the purpose of garnering Bucky’s appreciation. Steve didn’t have to put it to words for it to be obvious that taking care of Bucky was the one thing Steve needed most in life, and the thing he would go to seemingly boundless ends to accomplish. Steve took care of him because Steve wanted to, and because something about doing it made Steve feel good and _right_.

But the thing was… that fixation on giving Bucky what he wanted and needed did a lot more than make Steve into a loving, devoted boyfriend. It was _also_ the single most quintessential characteristic of a good Alpha, and fuck—in some shameful and hideous way that fact alone made Bucky’s thoughts turn to the one thing about their relationship that _wasn’t_ perfect, and the thing he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about.

Bucky had truly meant what he said in Dr. Welsh’s office, that he would love Steve even if he _never_ knotted him again.

But _goddamn_ — did Bucky want him to.

The car of the train was just as crowded as could be expected during the holiday season in Manhattan, but Bucky was quite good at keeping his focus inward. He had always been skilled at being alone in a crowded place, and today—with his mind unexpectedly heavy with a confusion of thoughts—Bucky allowed himself to look more deeply than he had in a long time.

Steve had told Dr. Welsh that he felt as though knotting Bucky might somehow let his feral, primal side—that _“other Alpha”_ , as Steve had put it—slip back into the driver’s seat. He associated the act of knotting with making Bucky do things that Steve thought Bucky didn’t _want_. Although he’d held back a reaction at the time, hearing that sentiment from Steve had left Bucky with a sharp, stabbing feeling. It was a feeling that was returning to him now as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder on a crowded subway car, the strangers in his midst completely ignorant to the clamor and clatter of emotions expanding rapidly in his ribcage, because Bucky knew that it was possible to truly want a thing without wanting to ask it into existence.

Just like Steve, Bucky knew what it was like to _fear_ the wanting.

For the first time in a long time, Bucky allowed himself to resurface his own memory of that Heat: lying in his own sweat and slick, satiated. _Knotted_. Feeling safe and loved and cared for in his Alpha’s arms.

And then Steve’s teeth, with their first threat of pressure against the skin of his neck.

The memory wasn’t traumatic for Bucky in the way it had been for Steve, but he still avoided thinking about it often— mostly because he didn’t think _Steve_ would want him to dwell on it. But, like Steve’s, Bucky’s version of the memory was not without shame. He _had_ felt afraid when he’d realized Steve—out of his mind—might bite him, but now it was months and what felt like years later and Bucky had stopped trying to deny to himself that he had, well and truly, been _excited_ by the thought of Steve claiming him.

Bucky _had_ wanted. There was a primitive, reckless instinct inside of him, just the same way Steve had his own feral nature. It was Bucky’s _id_ , his most base desire, and it was the reason he hadn’t tried to stop Steve with the Alpha tase the way that he’d promised that he would. But even then— even reckless and basic and thoughtless—it was still _Bucky’s_ reckless instinct and _Bucky’s_ base desire and he could no longer allow himself to separate those two parts of his being just because he didn’t want to shoulder the guilt of his past failure.

The very thought of Steve biting him—bonding him, _taking_ him—had appealed almost irresistibly to Bucky in his Heat, but it had appealed to _every_ part of him: the parts that were nothing but primitive Omega, and the parts that were not that at all. His mind suddenly flashed to the holiday gala just days prior— _cheek pressed against the cool conference table, fingers firm and loving around his hips, his hands and his knees and his breathlessness and the euphoria of vulnerability, release, presenting for his Alpha and being so thoroughly **owned**_ —and Bucky could recall feeling that very same raw, instinctual wanting then, too— without being inebriated by Heat.

The truth was that Bucky didn’t need for Steve to bite him, or even knot him, for him to feel loved and wanted. He loved Steve endlessly and with patience, and he could wait… but he was growing weary of keeping his own instinct and desire on a leash. Those things were all a _part_ of Bucky, and he was tired of biting back words. He was done with swallowing pleas. But he knew that for Steve it was different; his Alpha had fought the intensity of his own instincts during that rut and he had _won_ the battle, raged within himself, and his victory had been every bit for the better. At the time.

But then— war at end—Steve had never _stopped_ fighting.

What Bucky wanted more than anything was for Steve to love every part of himself: the man he was, the primal Alpha inside, and each intimate part in between where the two could not be separated. So if Bucky was going to let go and stop denying _himself_ , then he resolved to make Steve let go, too. He just had to find a way to get him to do it.

And when Bucky stopped to really consider the way Steve had just _been_ lately—ramping up his endless doting, the stunted but heated possessiveness, the intensity of his devotion, the servitude _,_ commanding and caring all at once and _oh_ —the way his Alpha could so effortlessly make Bucky want to _submit_ to him, honest and sweet? To slip down and beg Steve to take, _take,_ and then—somehow—experience the taking like it was Steve’s very own declaration of love?

_Fuck._

Well, hey. Bucky could definitely work with that.

He switched trains at the next stop. The new subway car was much emptier than the last, passing out of Manhattan, and Bucky took the first empty seat he saw.

As the train began to move, Bucky Barnes began to plan.

—

When Bucky arrived at Blue Serenity Day Spa, he was blown away by how incredible it looked. It was larger than it looked from the outside, spacious but still warm and cozy in spite of the luxurious-looking blue granite tile that covered the reception room. The walls were covered in dark wallpaper, making the place feel smaller and more intimate than it probably was. There were two very soft-looking armchairs in the corner of the room, and the entire place smelled like sandalwood.

Bucky walked up to the reception desk, where there sat a redheaded woman with a kind smile.

“Hello, sir,” she greeted. “Do you have an appointment with us today?”

“Um, yeah. I don’t know if it’s under Bucky, or, uh, maybe Steve.”

“Yep,” she smiled brightly in the direction of her tablet, “I have a Bucky right here for a ninety minute massage at 3:15, and — oh, there’s also a note here that you’re interested in some additional services?”

He shifted his eyes towards the floor, somehow both embarrassed and excited by the reminder of just how much Steve was trying to spoil him. “Yeah, my boyfriend booked this appointment for me. I had no idea. He said I should get some other stuff, I guess? After the massage.”

The receptionist made a high-pitched ‘aw’ sound that reminded Bucky of a little girl seeing a puppy. “That’s so sweet! Your boyfriend sounds so amazing!”

“He really is,” Bucky smiled, allowing himself the moment to just keep looking down at his shoes and be awed — not for the first time that day — by how lucky he was to have Steve.

“Which additional services are you interested in?”

Bucky shuffled his feet nervously. “Um, I guess I don’t really know. What do you have?”

“Everything!” she beamed. “We are a full-service spa. We offer facials, full-body skin treatments, manicures, pedicures, waxing, reflexology...”

The list went on. Bucky didn’t know what half the terms meant, and short of a manicure he’d never actually had any of them done to him. But, in light of certain _decisions_ he had recently come to, there was one service in particular that piqued his interest.

“What— what kind of waxing?”

—

_December 16_

_Friday - 2:45 P.M._

The view from the passenger’s side window made Bucky feel like they were driving through a poem.

It wasn’t a poem. It was more like prose, and it was real. The country road they drove was framed on either side by white snow, winding through the mountains somewhere near Windham, Vermont— the final leg of their journey to Steve’s cabin. Every frozen pond they passed looked like it could have been Walden’s.

Their drive had been only a few hours, but it had been breathtaking from the moment they got out of the city. Bucky couldn’t think of the last time he had been away from dense urban bustle during wintertime and he had almost forgotten what pure snow looked like, allowed to lay without being sullied.

He’d never been this far north before. The trees that lined the roadside were a beautiful mixture of conifers, fluffy and heavy with snow, and hardwoods with branches laid bare on the doorstep of winter. The imagery floating past the windows of their SUV (which Steve had borrowed—rather aggressively—from Tony’s garage) looked like a picture that could be found on the jar of a warmly scented candle named something like ‘Winter Wonderland’. He wondered if the air outside smelled like cedar. Like Steve, who sat in the driver’s seat next to him.

The thought made a question spring into Bucky’s head.

“What do I smell like?”

The sudden break in their comfortable silence seemed to startle Steve from his comfortable focus on the road. The Alpha chuckled and gave Bucky a curious side-long glance.

“Um… Really, really good?” 

And Bucky had to laugh at that. 

“Okay, thanks for that, I guess, but like… _what_ do I smell like?” he asked again. “To _you_ , I mean.” 

Bucky paused to consider how he might put it in a way Steve would understand. He looked out the window, admiring the passing scene with its untouched snow. He began by example.

“Like… your scent, for me? You smell a lot like _forest_ , and… a campfire, I guess? Trees— yeah, like tree bark and _smoke_ — but not, like, the bad kind. But then there’s also other things. Tea leaves.” He knew he was rambling but he honestly didn’t care, turning back to Steve with a wry smile. “Sometimes pinecones, but only when you’re _really_ turned on.”

Steve laughed, the melodic sound of it filling up the car. He nodded his head as if to say, _‘okay, I get it now’._

“You’re gonna have to bear with me here, Buck. I’ve never thought to try and put words to it. I’ve never been as eloquent as you.”

Steve bit his lower lip. Bucky watched fingers on the steering wheel clench and unclench lightly and methodically, like Steve was just stretching out the muscles. Bucky knew his boyfriend was deep in thought by the way that the furrow of his brow faded in and out.

“You smell like _earth_. Water. Wet stone.”

Bucky barked out a little laugh. “You think I smell like _rocks_?” 

“Hey, don’t make fun! You _asked_.” Steve grinned in spite of his chiding tone and started gesticulating a little aimlessly with the hand not on the wheel. “Look, I— I remember this one sorta funny word that my ma taught me. She didn’t get to go to school but she used to read a lot, right? And she said there was actually a word for the smell of, um… trees, right after it rains. It’s called ‘petrichor’.”

Steve over-pronounced the last word proudly, like he was smug that he knew a big word, but Bucky knew better; Steve Rogers had an eidetic memory and absorbed every word he ever heard or read— and was light-years more intelligent than most people, besides.

“ _Petrichor_ , huh?”

“Yup,” Steve said, popping the ‘p’. “It’s like… It’s the smell of those top few inches of dark soil when it’s wet. It’s the smell of _raindrops_ , on green leaves. Honestly, you— you don’t smell like any of the things that I grew up knowing in Brooklyn. Concrete. Boiled… _everything_ ,” he laughed. “No, you… You only smell like the things I came to know when I _left_ Brooklyn for the first time. During the war.”

Bucky cocked an eyebrow in Steve’s direction, his interest piqued at the change in tone to something that wasn’t quite somber but was more akin to wonder. Was Steve saying he smelled like... _war_?

Steve must have noticed his confusion, because he was quick to shake his head. “No, no, not… not the gunpowder, or the wet socks,” he clarified with a snort. “Bucky, you... you smell like all the really amazing things I found when I got to Europe. The way the forests in Germany would smell in autumn, in the rainy season, or the air near the mountain streams in northern Italy.” Steve gave a little shrug like he felt silly for telling the truth. “You smell like all the really _good_ things that I didn’t have in Brooklyn, back in 1941.”

And Bucky… Bucky found himself absolutely floored by the sentiment, for some reason. _He_ was the one that had asked the question and Steve had obviously answered it honestly, but Bucky felt like there was some underlying declaration in his reply, something heavier than expected. Maybe it wasn’t something completely new, nothing he hadn’t heard from Steve before in some shape or fashion, but the idea that Bucky was—was Steve’s new _home_ in a century where he had never really stopped feeling out of place never failed to amaze him and make tears prick the corners of his eyes.

But he tried not to let on to any of that. Instead Bucky breathed in, and he pursed his lips and shrugged, feigning comical nonchalance like Steve hadn’t just laid the most profoundly deep sentiments on him.

“That’s weird,” he joked, “my dad always said I smelled like fruit.”

—

Steve’s cabin was at the top of a snowy hillside overlooking his ten acres, wooded all around with a picturesque lake at the very bottom of the slope. It looked to Bucky like something straight out of a postcard. The idea that he and Steve would get to spend the next two and a half weeks alone together in this enchanted-looking place seemed more unreal to him than ever.

The cabin itself was… nothing like what Bucky had expected. He had been imagining a nostalgic log cabin fit for a no-frills lumberjack, but what he saw instead was something rustic yet very modern-looking. Built right into the hillside was a three-level home constructed of cedar planks and blue-gray shingles. The central hub of the house was decked floor-to-ceiling with expansive glass windows. Upon arrival Bucky had immediately noticed that the lights inside were already on, and when he’d shot Steve a nervous look the Alpha had quickly assured him that no one was there, he’d just had his groundskeeper come around earlier in the day to turn on the heat.

(Also: Steve had a _groundskeeper_.)

If the stylish exterior of the cabin was unexpected, the interior was nothing less than surreal. The kitchen on the middle level was spacious and airy with beautiful cedar cabinetry that matched the ship-lap lumber walls. The entire upper level was just one sprawling master suite, framed by low but vaulted ceilings and a gorgeous stone fireplace at the center with a massive, low-to-floor bed piled high with plush-looking pillows and blankets. The lower level was not a basement but more of an insulated sunroom overlooking a summer patio and the steeply sloped hillside, currently caked in a sheet of brilliant white. But it was Steve’s living room on the middle level that really stole Bucky’s breath.

Specifically, it was Steve’s _couch_.

The Alpha had taken them in through the attached garage and gone right upstairs to deposit their collective bags (which Steve had carried all at once, effortlessly), so the living area was one of the last places Bucky saw. The room itself was large with high ceilings and sprawling wooden rafters, anchored by a fireplace even larger than the one he’d just seen in the master suite. There were several rustic but expensive-looking pieces of furniture throughout, a couple of leather armchairs positioned beside tall bookcases, but Bucky couldn’t bring himself to look away from the piece at the very middle.

The couch was a sprawling mocha-colored sectional arranged into a perfect right angle. The base was upholstered with a rich brown leather and curved upward at the ends like a boat, while the cushions appeared to be made from an incredibly soft-looking fabric that might have been a thick cotton. It was an _enormous_ piece of furniture—could clearly sleep four adults comfortably—with no less than eight huge backrest cushions and half a dozen throw pillows to fluff out the cozy appeal. It looked and smelled brand new.

Bucky came closer and carefully ran his hands over the cushions, finding that the fabric was every bit as soft as it looked. The world outside the towering living room windows was a chilly winter scene, cold snow blanketed over the mysterious and striking expanse of nature, but Bucky felt nothing but warmth and familiarity and _safety_ just looking at Steve’s couch. And he knew exactly why.

 _“Steve…”_ he whispered, looking back towards the entrance to the room where the Alpha was standing and watching him take everything in. “This is a…”

It felt like Bucky’s lungs were seizing up with the depth of the desire he felt to burrow himself into the plush cushions with every piece of clothing he or Steve had ever worn, every bed sheet either of them had ever slept on. He knew what this couch really was and he knew it must have been a recent purchase, something that Steve had probably bought in the city and payed stupid amounts of money to have it delivered, to have his _groundskeeper_ set it up.

“I got it for you,” Steve said, looking perhaps a little bit nervous but not the least bit apologetic. “I was… thinking ahead. I thought that maybe that— if we’re able to predict it— we could come up here right before you go, um. Before you go into—”

But Steve couldn’t finish his sentence with an Omega flinging himself into his arms, silenced by the crush of Bucky’s lips to his. He smiled against Bucky’s mouth and lifted him up, Bucky’s legs wrapping around Steve’s waist with practiced ease, his arms tight around Steve’s neck and strong shoulders.

“You got…” Bucky whispered, pulling away after a moment with a smile and the smallest of sniffles, betraying the emotion welling up in his chest. “You got me a _nesting couch_.”

Steve grinned and nodded with his forehead pressed to Bucky’s. “Yeah, Buck. Do you like it?”

Bucky just leaned in and swallowed Steve’s breath again in answer. It was a deep, tender kiss, and Bucky tried his best to pour in every bit of gratitude and love he was feeling for Steve in that perfect moment. Nesting furniture was typically rare due to problems of size and expense, but it was also an incredibly _intimate_ luxury, for those who could afford it. It was by no means a necessity— an Omega and their partner could build the perfect nest anywhere in their home given the right materials and sufficient privacy— but there was something so perfect about Steve thinking of Bucky’s future Heats, the pair of them locked away in his incredible secret cabin, wrapped up warm and safe from the rest of the world without another soul around for miles.

Steve was thinking about what would happen when Bucky went into Heat and that felt beautiful and sweet but it also felt like _progress_. It gave Bucky the boost of confidence he felt like he needed to follow through with his plan for the first evening of their winter vacation.

The two kissed sweetly and Steve held him for a while longer before he put Bucky down, gave him a proper tour of the house. The ‘groundskeeper’ was apparently much _more_ than just a groundskeeper but also a handyman, professional pillow fluffer, and grocery gopher— if the fully stocked fridge was anything to go by. By the time they fully unpacked and got settled the sun was going down already. Steve opened a bottle of red wine and they enjoyed the view of the sun setting over the hillside through the windows of the sunroom, curled into each other on a chaise lounge, until it was dark outside and their stomachs were grumbling for dinner.

Bucky perched himself on a barstool at the kitchen island and watched while Steve whipped up an incredible dish of pasta carbonara. When they finished the bottle of wine they opened another, enjoyed it with their dinner at the beautifully crafted table in the breakfast nook. Bucky’s blood was warm and buzzing and feeling perfect by the time they cleaned up after dinner. They touched shoulders far more than was strictly necessary while Bucky washed the dishes and Steve dried them. 

When the dishes were done they took their wine into the living room. If Bucky weren’t feeling so relaxed then he might have been vibrating out of his _skin_ when Steve set both of their glasses to the side and grabbed Bucky’s waist, pulling him into his warm lap on their new _nesting_ couch. The fabric still smelled neutral, Bucky’s lizard brain noted, but he and Steve would have plenty of time on their vacation to make it smell like them both.

…Starting _now_ , if the warm mood floating beneath Bucky’s skin and the heat in Steve’s eyes were any indicators.

Steve had been radiating a smoky, gratified Alpha scent ever since their shared kiss in the living room upon arrival, his normal scent tinged with rich tobacco. Maybe it was an effect of Steve leading them around, showing Bucky his domain and getting to sense his Omega's impressed appreciation. Maybe it was Bucky’s clear approval of the nesting spot Steve has chosen for him. Maybe it was just the wine, the scenery. Bucky thought it was probably a combination of all those things, but the entirety of their late afternoon and early evening had been nothing but a thick, sweet tension building between them, comfortable but tangible, hands never moving from within reach of each other’s skin. Bucky could already feel the stirrings of an erection beneath him in Steve’s jeans, where Bucky was straddling him, and Steve…

Steve looked ready to devour him _whole_.

But Bucky had a _plan_ , and for it to work, he needed to double and triple check that Steve was in the headspace Bucky needed him to be in. He would work that out by applying just a _tiny_ bit more heat, creating a little more anticipation. When—instead of diving right in and licking into Steve’s mouth—Bucky picked up their wine glasses from the coffee table and handed Steve’s over it earned a _look_ from Steve, a warning smile that said something between _‘is that so?’_ and _‘baby… I hope you know what’s coming to you’._

Steve ultimately played along, talking together about nothing at all, taking a drink from his glass each time Bucky took one from his own. Eventually Bucky began to _really_ lower his eyelashes, leaning into the mood. He started feeding Steve little sips from his own glass when Steve’s was finally empty, pressing barely-there kisses to Steve’s mouth each time he finished, then holding the eye contact as he slowly took a sip for himself. 

The hands on Bucky’s waist tightened and loosened in cycles with each new bit of the tease. Steve was almost visibly riled up by the time Bucky’s glass was nearly empty— and when he saw the way Bucky grinned and _slowed down_ , avoiding the last few dregs, Steve stopped him in the middle of whatever unimportant story Bucky was purposely dragging on about by encircling the wrist on the hand holding the glass, catching it between Steve’s own long fingers. Bucky’s breath hitched mid-throat at the dark look on his face.

_“Finish your drink, sweetheart.”_

It took every effort for Bucky to suppress his shiver.

 _Bingo_.

He didn’t respond, just followed Steve’s order, throwing back that last few drops. Bucky wasn’t even finished swallowing by the time Steve grabbed the empty glass from his hand and leaned forward to set it on the coffee table, his movement controlled but purposeful, and no sooner did Bucky hear the soft _clink_ of glass to the hard surface before Steve was pulling him in, pressing their bodies and lips together.

Bucky was certain it was the most erotic kiss they had ever shared. Steve was in control of it from the start, dominating Bucky’s mouth with his own, one hand cupping the back of Bucky’s neck while the other was bolted securely to the Omega’s hip and gently but _oh so firmly_ guiding Bucky’s pelvis to grind downward, moving his smaller body in sensual waves. The motions caused moans to spill forth helplessly from Bucky’s mouth as he surrendered to the feeling. Steve hungrily swallowed each one with an approving rumble in his own chest.

Both of them were obviously hard in their pants and Bucky could already feel himself growing wet— something Steve apparently scented almost as soon as it happened. It felt like Bucky’s heart was trying to pound out of his chest when Steve groaned and began to push a hand down the back of Bucky’s pants, fingers seeking out the source of the sweet smell. He didn’t have to wait long; Steve spent only seconds toying the Bucky’s wet rim before the breath audibly caught in the confines of that deep chest.

“Buck,” Steve rasped, finally pulling his wet mouth away from where it was busy claiming Bucky’s. He removed the fingers from Bucky’s pants and wrapped them around Bucky’s hip again, apparently too caught off-guard to care about the wetness they spread on his shirt. He pulled a few more inches backwards so Bucky could see the awed and incredulous and _dirty_ look on his face. “Bucky, did you...” 

Bucky gathered in the deepest breath he could without visibly giving away his nerves. _Go time._

Putting some pout into his lips, Bucky hands framed Steve’s bearded jaw and he pulled the Alpha back in for a shallow kiss, grinding his ass down hard like it was sad to see Steve’s fingers go.

“You said you wanted me to enjoy the spa,” Bucky whispered against Steve’s lips, “and I want you to enjoy _me_ , so...” he trailed off, no intention of finishing the thought, knowing that his meaning had sunk in with Steve before Bucky even opened his mouth.

Steve wasn’t moving. That was okay, though; the charred pine cone character in his scent betrayed exactly how much he liked the surprise. When Bucky spoke next he worked hard to inject an air of almost feminine innocence into his voice. 

“Do you like it?” he asked.

Bucky rubbed one thumb across Steve’s plump lower lip, the color of it flushed with the madness of their kissing. He quietly let himself breathe, once, twice. Once more, and then repeated it.

“Do you like it... _Daddy?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, dear.  
> (Yes, Bucky got his ass and balls waxed)
> 
> See [Steve's Vermont cabin](https://i.imgur.com/V06hGqa.jpg) and [Bucky's new nesting couch](https://i.imgur.com/tP5W9Wm.png).


	6. Daddy (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the words of my fave [@lullabybeauty](https://lullabybeauty.tumblr.com/): **#DaddyModeActivated**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick universe note: It's happened before but starting in this chapter, you're going to hear much more liberal use of the word "cunt" in reference to Bucky's asshole. This is primarily due to increased volume of dirty talk, but please note that this is not intended to be feminization as much as it is regular slang that you might find in the Compatible A/B/O Universe. Here, it is normal to refer to a male Omega's ass as his "cunt" and his penis as his "dick" ("cocks" are typically reserved for penises with knots).

_“Do you like it…Daddy?”_

Steve’s big body had already been rendered immobile with arousal before Bucky said the words, but as soon as they were out of Bucky’s mouth…

Steve stopped breathing altogether. 

Bucky watched, felt. Listened. Steve’s eyes continued to bore holes into the skin near Bucky’s clavicle, the spot his gaze had begun to settle in shock even before Bucky dropped his bomb, but there wasn’t a muscle in Steve’s body that did so much as _twitch_ save for the ten fingertips that sunk like the dull teeth of strong jaws into Bucky’s hips. The subtle pain of it made Bucky’s lungs stutter in his ribcage. 

Several eternal seconds passed by in Steve’s silence. The stillness in the room felt as enormous as the man himself and for a brief moment Bucky began to panic, thinking that he had miscalculated the entire plan, but he allowed his panic to last only briefly because something in Bucky’s very _soul_ told him that he had done more than just get it right, that he had struck a deep and dark nerve that maybe even Steve didn’t know existed, and that—mother of _god_ —when Steve finally did breathe again? There was going to be a reckoning.

So that’s why when Steve finally loosed a guttural groan and the noise split the room in two, Bucky did not feel shock.

It’s why when Steve lifted his gaze and his eyes were nothing but the intensity of black pupils beneath heavy lids, Bucky was not caught off-guard.

It’s why when Steve finally did breath in so he could speak— could _purr_ at Bucky with words coated in dark chocolate and _sweetheart_ , dripping smooth and even as anything— Bucky was not surprised but could not ever, _ever_ have made himself ready for it.

“ _Sweetheart_ ,” he said, and _oh_ , that was a very specific kind of voice that Bucky had not heard from Steve before. There was a sense of power in it that Bucky was certain he had never before witnessed in another person. “Is that what you want?”

And now it was _Bucky_ who wasn’t breathing. It was Bucky who could not speak. His heart pounded with exhilaration and the terror of the moment, flesh disintegrating inside his skin. He had nothing left of the assertiveness he’d worn only seconds ago when he came in for the strike, and Steve must have seen it in Bucky’s face. He smoothed a confident palm up Bucky’s flank, proprietary and tender and so, _so_ fucking deadly. 

“Buck?” Steve said. His voice sounded dark and deep and it dripped with something that felt like sex and maybe even condescension all at once and it _did things_ to Bucky. “Is this what you want?”

Bucky just managed to pull enough brain cells together to give Steve a dumb nod. He didn’t feel like he held the reins at _all_ anymore, and even though he knew objectively that this was always his plan it did not make his empty hands feel any less shocking.

“Need to hear you say it, honey.”

“Y—yes,” Bucky managed. The word was barely there but he _meant_ it and it tasted like a victory on his thick and heavy tongue. “ _Yes_.”

Steve hummed low in his chest, appreciation and approval, continuing to stroke Bucky’s side with his expansive, warm, sure palms. When he quirked a single eyebrow at Bucky he did it with a playful yet almost chilling sense of authority. 

“Yes _what_ , Buck?”

The truth in the question was clear as day: a switch had been flipped and Bucky’s Alpha was a different man now— was a different man _to Bucky_ — and the way that it was both new and somehow entirely familiar felt like the most devastating kind of punch direct to Bucky’s gut. He had asked for this, and he had _received_.

“Yes… Daddy,” and goddamn if the word didn’t entirely melt on Bucky’s tongue, just like he’d always hoped it would.

Steve swore, ground his hips up into Bucky’s, and stared him down like prey for about two seconds before there were commanding fingers on Bucky’s chin and they were grabbing, pulling him down for a kiss that was nothing short of devastation. It was methodical and demanding and possessive, Steve taking Bucky’s mouth apart with his hot tongue, sweeping over every part of it from his soft inner cheeks to the underside of his tongue and damn near all the way back to his tonsils. 

When Steve finally broke the kiss Bucky was panting and close to whimpering from being so destroyed— but aside from the flush on his cheeks, Steve looked perfectly cool and collected as he brought a hand up to cradle Bucky’s jaw. He ran a thumb over Bucky’s wet and now swollen bottom lip, looking darkly and thoughtfully at the dark locks of Bucky’s hair. When he spoke, his voice was composed of silk.

“Alright, Buck. Tell your _Daddy_ what you want,” and the hand on Bucky’s hip was the only thing keeping Bucky from utterly collapsing forward onto Steve’s chest when Steve referred to _himself_ as ‘Daddy’, when Steve went on, “ _tell me_ what you want right now, sweetheart. Tell me and I swear that I will give it to you.”

It was a command, like many Steve had given him before. This was familiar; _this_ , Bucky knew how to handle.

“I want to make you feel good,” he answered, still breathless.

Steve visibly shivered at Bucky’s answer but otherwise kept his composure. He ran the hand on Bucky’s jaw down his neck and then his chest and then his flank in a slow, sweeping motion, following the trail of touch with his gaze in a way that felt utterly _proprietary_ —like he owned Bucky wholly and completely. Like he knew it, too.

“That so, sweetheart?” 

Bucky nodded. “Uh-huh, yes. Please.”

Steve gave him a crooked smile and a gentle squeeze on his waist. Both felt like a reward for good manners.

“Okay, baby.” Steve continued to pet at his sides, sounding out a hum of consideration. “Think I might wanna try something new with you tonight. You trust me?”

“I trust you,” Bucky answered, without hesitation. He didn’t bother to point out that what they were doing was already something new.

Steve groaned again and gave him a soft kiss, murmuring against Bucky’s lips, “so _sweet_ , wantin’ to make your Daddy feel good,” and Bucky couldn’t stop the pathetic little moan that escaped this time.

He let himself lean into the kiss, no longer caring about who had the control or reins to deepen it. This was it; this was the _point_. He moaned almost embarrassingly when Steve eventually pulled his lips away.

‘Daddy’ would be setting the pace tonight; that much was clear.

“But,” Steve went on, “do you know what makes me feel _really_ good?”

Bucky’s hips began squirming against his will, wanting to grind down, wanting to get _some_ sort of friction to abate all the tension and anticipation building in his abdomen. He wanted to get naked, wanted to get Steve’s hand back in his pants, wanted to get his mouth on Steve’s body or else get Steve’s on his and he wanted it _now_ or he felt like his chest would explode.

“Wh—what?”

And as though he had read Bucky’s mind, Steve’s hand shoved down the back of Bucky’s pants again. He quested out the soft, smooth skin he knew would find on his hole this time, dipping his fingers into the considerable wetness that had begun to pool there. Steve groaned deeply against Bucky’s mouth at the feeling and bit down on his fleshy lower lip.

“Eating my sweetheart’s _wet little cunt_.”

And it was _so_ fucking filthy and then the fingers were gone and Steve was wrapping both his huge hands around Bucky’s waist, lifting Bucky off his lap and shifting him in one smooth series of motions. He set Bucky down with his knees on the plush couch cushions, facing the back of the couch, and Bucky instinctively shot his hands out in front of him to steady himself against the backrest.

Steve moved off the couch completely, standing up to step behind Bucky and out of his peripheral vision. Bucky could no longer see him but he could feel the heat of Steve’s muscled body bearing down against the skin of his back. Those huge hands were soon on his shoulders, running slowly and sensually and surely down the length of Bucky’s outstretched arms, until they came to cover his own hands where they were gripping the backrest.

“Keep these pretty hands here, sugar. Do not move them unless I tell you to.”

He whispered into Bucky’s ear like it was a secret even though it was really an order. The scent of their combined arousal was becoming overwhelming, quickly making Bucky dizzy, and it wasn’t until Steve squeezed his hands where they were joined against the back of the couch that Bucky realized he hadn’t answered.

Steve placed a light kiss against Bucky’s neck, nosing right over his scent gland. “You say stop and this all stops,” he whispered, too quiet to break the scene.

“No,” Bucky choked out, before he could think to say anything else, “I want. I want all of this, please,” and _fuck_ , he did—more than even Bucky himself had known before.

The answer earned him a smile against his neck and another kiss, and then Steve’s hands were disentangling from his and the heat of Steve’s skin was moving away as he stood back from the couch. 

“I’m going to undress you now,” Steve said, and then that’s what Steve did.

With his muscles still feeling weak and useless under the weight of his own arousal Bucky could do nothing but remain still and pliant while Steve worked. He peeled Bucky out of his clothes quickly but efficiently, controlled, and Bucky could feel Steve’s eyes pressing heat into every new inch of skin that was revealed. Those wide palms replaced each piece of clothing as they disappeared and ran reverently all over his backside, down his spine, over his ass and his thighs, just touching; feeling. Even though Steve had seen him naked a hundred times before, it suddenly felt as though it were the very the first time.

“So beautiful, baby.”

One hand ran up and down Bucky’s flank for a few slow strokes, full of intention, before moving it over the cleft of his ass. The casual possessiveness in each touch made Bucky shiver, made his skin break out in goosebumps, which maybe Steve mistook for him feeling cold because then his hands were holding Bucky’s hip bones and his big, clothed body was pressed fully against Bucky’s bare backside in what Bucky had come to think of as a very _Steve_ move: he liked to sit back and look his fill— but not as much as he wanted to stay _close_ and in control, secure. Steve had never once let Bucky feel like he was cold or alone.

Pressed together fully now, Steve buried his face in the side of Bucky’s neck again and began to lick and scent him, a gentle growling sound rumbling low in his chest. One strong hand came up to cover the front expanse of Bucky’s throat and _oh dear god_ — it wasn’t pressing down, it was just holding, keeping, but the way that it radiated an effortless kind of control made Bucky’s belly boil over and made his aching hole drip slick. Steve groaned and released Bucky’s skin from his mouth.

“You said you wanted to make me feel good,” he breathed into his ear, grinding his hips forward into Bucky’s bare ass, letting Bucky feel the hard, gorgeous line of his erection through Steve’s pants. Bucky was sure that his own wetness must have been soaking through the fabric. “You see how good you make me feel, baby? Feel how hard I get just from you looking at you, from smelling how turned on you are, all naked and wet for your _Daddy_?”

Bucky couldn’t catch his breath and he wasn’t sure that he _wanted_ to— not with Steve pressed behind him, whispering filth into his ear, caging him in and maybe about to lick him out. But there was something about the energy of the moment that made Bucky wish he could _see_ Steve and not just feel him. His tongue was heavy in his own mouth and he made a choked-out whining noise that thankfully sounded a lot like Steve’s name, and then he was nibbling the shell on Bucky’s ear and rumbling out, _“Yes, baby?”_

Bucky took a steadying breath and tried to lick his lips but found his mouth was too dry. 

“Wanna—wanna see you.”

Steve pressed a heady, devoted kiss into Bucky’s neck and nodded, moving back with agreement, “of course, baby, anything you need,” helping Bucky to twist and turn around in his place on the couch.

Once Bucky was comfortable on his back he blinked up at the hovering form, big and warm, and he felt his own exhale fade into a feeble stutter. It wasn’t the first time ever that he had found himself looking up at Steve hulking over him and thought that his Alpha looked like a _god_ , like sheer power, emanating competence and dominance and control… but it _was_ the first time that Bucky looked up at this mountain of a man and thought—

_“Daddy.”_

The word escaped his tongue so easily that it took Bucky aback, how much it felt like second nature already. Maybe he had come into the evening feeling a little bit calculating but this—this felt _freeing_.

For a brief moment Steve’s expression was fond and almost gentle when he smiled and nodded, when he said, “yeah, sweetheart, that’s right,” before something far more predatory flashed across his features and he gripped the back of Bucky’s thighs firmly, pushing them into his chest and telling Bucky to _“hold them, Buck, show Daddy where you need his mouth.”_

And just like that a new and solid wall of desire slammed into Bucky with crushing force, making his vision white-out for a second. He could do nothing but obey and he _wanted_ nothing else, letting out a shocked, needy whimper as he grabbed the backs of his own thighs so Steve could let go and touch him elsewhere, everywhere, holding himself open for Steve to look and touch and lick or do whatever he wanted to him.

“Good _boy_.”

Bucky could hardly process how that particular praise made him feel like someone was squeezing his lungs and he opted to not try, to not bother with thinking anymore. He expected Steve to dive in immediately with the same fervor he always showed when eating Bucky out, so he was surprised when he opened his eyes (and when had they slammed shut so tight?) to find Steve staring down between his thighs with a look like he was seeing Bucky’s soaked hole for the first time ever, hands cupping Bucky’s ass while his thumbs played with the mess and stroked at his baby-smooth skin and—

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Bucky moaned weakly, but the sound barely registered to him when Steve was touching Bucky’s skin and the wet clench of his muscle.

Steve hummed as though deep in thought and gave him a crude little _tap_ on Bucky’s wet hole, lightly, with one finger. The sound it made was audible in the cabin.

“This all for me, sugar?”

Bucky whined long and nodded, ardently, so blinded by arousal now and reduced to such a mess that he only barely managed to croak out, _“yes, Daddy”._ In the whirlwind of the moment he had completely forgotten about how Steve had found this little surprise earlier, hands shoved down the back of Bucky’s pants, feeling the soft and smooth places that Bucky had waxed at the spa. Like most male Omegas, he did not have a lot of body hair naturally— but he had _some_ , and he had been pleasantly surprised to find how dramatic the difference felt without the sparse dusting of hair that had covered his balls and the skin below.

“You asked me earlier if I liked it,” Steve drawled, talking mostly to himself now, eyes set where his hands were. “To be honest, I’d never even thought about you doing something like this before, but _fuck_ sweetheart, this is…”

But Steve apparently had no intention of continuing that sentence and Bucky honestly did not care, not when Steve was instead bending over to taste all of Bucky’s wet and newly smooth skin with his tongue. He couldn’t bother to be embarrassed by the loud keening noise he let out at the sensation of Steve mouthing and licking at the sensitive furl of muscle, at the way it felt just as incredible as it always did when Steve ate him out but even _more_ , somehow, this night.

The sounds that Steve made as he licked into Bucky so aggressively— the shameless moans and the little _growls—_ were nearly as obscene as the wet squelching noises Bucky’s hole made each time Steve’s fucked his hot tongue in and out of him. Bucky tightened his grip on his own thighs and hugged his legs into his body harder, like squeezing at them would somehow ground him enough to keep him from losing his mind too fast.

It didn’t.

Bucky was so turned on that it hurt. His entire world was reduced to Steve’s mouth, his own hard dick laying against his lower belly, leaking a little puddle of pre-come that pooled and ran into his navel. Steve suddenly pulled his face back with a shameless slurping sound and shoved his hands underneath Bucky’s body, fingers gripping his shoulders from the back and pulling him down harder towards Steve with absolute control and leverage. Bucky shouted helpless nonsense and his dick kicked twice. Steve saw it and sucked him down with his mouth, swallowing several times with zeal and making Bucky shout repeatedly, before letting his dick plop back down to his stomach with a wet noise.

“This body tastes so fuckin’ good,” Steve groaned, “all over, tastes like you’re _mine_ ,” and then he was diving back in again with his tongue—this time with the added length of one thick, expert finger.

Whatever was left of Bucky’s sanity was gone after that. The pleasure burning through his belly was more than he could really comprehend in the moment, and he certainly couldn’t separate which little licks of flame came from Steve’s tongue and which came from the fingertip pulsing against his prostate. Steve never added a second finger even though Bucky could have taken it from the off-set, and that meant Steve wasn’t doing this to try and open him up for his cock, not yet. He was doing this to take Bucky _apart_.

“ _Yeah_ , that’s it honey, let Daddy hear you.”

If Bucky’s mind could have comprehended time he would have known that, all-in-all, it took Steve less than five minutes to make Bucky come without a hand on his dick. Less than five minutes to make Bucky spurt onto the sweaty skin of his own stomach with a wild cry of Steve’s—of _Daddy’s_ name.

Steve’s tongue kept up its ministrations throughout, not letting up, drawing out the sensations for Bucky. He drank up his slick like it was a gift as Bucky’s orgasm stretched into one hot, lengthy tidal wave of pleasure that lasted longer than any he had ever experienced before. His consciousness dissolved into starlight and other things that sparkled, things that shined.

Once the trembling contractions of Bucky’s inner walls finally came to a stop Steve pulled back his mouth, only to move up and lick the warm come from Bucky’s skin. Bucky experienced it only as a background sensation, his brain far too busy drifting on air.

His limbs felt like they were made of pudding. At some point his arms must have given out because he wasn’t holding the backs of his thighs anymore, but _Steve_ was, and no, wait—that was no longer the fabric of the couch that he felt against his naked back. Steve wasn’t kneeling on the floor between his legs. Steve was holding Bucky’s body with one arm beneath his back and the other beneath his knees and they were moving because Bucky was being _carried_ , bridal-style, somewhere away from the living room and up the stairs.

Bucky blinked, again and again, eyes focusing to see Steve’s handsome face above him. His nose registered the tell-tale scent of his own slick. The tops of Bucky’s cheekbones colored with pink when he realized the scent was coming from Steve’s damp beard.

“There you are,” Steve cooed, smiling down as Bucky slowly became more lucid. His deep voice dripped like warm honey. “Sweet thing… feeling good?”

Bucky felt a silly grin stretch across his face. They were here, holed up together in Steve’s dreamy winter cabin, and Bucky got to call Steve ‘ _Daddy’_ and Steve liked it— _loved_ it—and then Steve just went down on him and now Steve was carrying him to their bedroom. Bucky had never been better.

“Yes, Daddy,” he answered, the words coming out more shyly than Bucky intended. He felt the slightest shudder run through Steve.

“Good, sweetheart. That’s so good. But you know… Daddy has a confession to make.”

Steve’s words might have been intended to sound serious, but Bucky heard the playful tone— _definitely_ heard the way his voice dropped when he called himself that special name again. He rubbed his face into Steve’s arm, enjoying the smoky, piney scent of skin beneath the sweater Steve still wore. 

“Oh, yeah?”

Steve smiled at Bucky’s scenting and nuzzled his own nose into Bucky’s hair as he carried him down the hallway.

“Mhm. Truth is… I didn’t go and lick at all your sweetness _just_ because I love how good you taste.”

Bucky couldn’t help but giggle at the verbal reminder of what Steve had just done, at the phenomenal, lewd way he liked to make Bucky come all over himself.

“I know,” Bucky said. It registered in his brain that his voice sounded the slightest bit slurred, probably from all the wine. “’S ‘cause you like to make me feel good, right?”

He felt the Alpha’s steps stutter in just the tiniest way. Steve beamed down at him, lustful expression glazed over with love and adoration.

“Oh, gosh… you _know_ I do, sweetie. Wanna make you feel good all the time.”

Steve craned his neck to press a tender kiss to Bucky’s lips, and when he pulled back Bucky saw the tall ceilings of the cabin’s bedroom come into view. The quilts and copious pillows were soft and inviting as Steve set him down, one knee on the end of the mattress as he gently laid Bucky in their plush bed. Bucky closed his eyes and smiled, stretching his limbs out happily, unashamed and his nakedness even when Steve was still fully clothed.

Steve chuckled at Bucky’s cat-like display and nudged him slightly, asking, “lay on your belly for me, sweetheart?” Bucky nodded and obliged without question. He settled on his stomach with Steve behind him and folded his arms underneath his head, body laid out straight and relaxed, closing his eyes contentedly. He could feel the orgasm still buzzing beneath his skin.

“There was one more reason, though… why I wanted to eat you up like that.”

Steve began to stuff a few of the many throw pillows under Bucky’s hips while he spoke, easily adjusting Bucky’s weight around as he saw fit. Bucky sighed, happy to let it happen.

“Daddy was being very, very selfish, baby boy,” and Bucky let the new pet name wash over his skin like warm praise. “I wanted to get you nice and _wet_ for me.”

With his backside now exposed to the open air for the first time since Steve ate him out, Bucky could feel _exactly_ how wet he was. The skin between his cheeks and thighs was _soaked_ with spit and slick. The physical reminder of having Steve’s face buried in his ass and licking away at him made Bucky moan breathily and rut his still half-hard dick into the pillows; not much, just easy and lazy, just enough to feel a little good.

“Oh, sweetheart, _such_ a good boy,” Steve praised—for what exactly, Bucky didn’t know. “Mmm, yeah… wanted to get you all slippery for what I’m gonna do now.”

“Gonna fuck me,” Bucky supplied with a little giggle. Steve had a hand on his hip almost helping him rut against the pillow, or maybe he was keeping him from going too fast? Bucky reveled in the skin contact either way. Steve was gonna feel _so_ good inside him.

“Mm, no honey. Not tonight.”

Bucky furrowed his brow in confusion, pouting his lips, before he realized Steve couldn’t see his face. He craned his neck a little uncomfortably to turn his head around, shooting Steve a questioning look.

“Wh… what?”

Steve calmly shushed Bucky and crawled forward a few feet. He took Bucky’s face between his two hands and kissed him on the lips sweetly before pulling back and looking into his eyes, petting his hair.

“Tonight you’re gonna help me with something I’ve always wanted to try with you. That okay, sweetheart? You trust me?”

Immediately Bucky tried to nod, but the angle wouldn’t let him. Steve seemed to register the response regardless but gave him a pointed look that indicated he expected a verbal reply.

“Yes Steve. _Daddy_ ,” he added with a languid wink that Bucky hoped looked more sexy than silly. “I trust you.”

Steve smiled—genuine, if not a little wicked— and leaned in for one more kiss. When they parted Bucky’s eyes fell for the first time to the tent at Steve’s crotch. His blood filled with fresh thrill to see how hard Steve was, noticeable even through his clothes.

“Lay your head back down, sweetheart. Relax. All you need to do is lay there for me.”

“Aren’t you gonna get naked with me?”

Steve’s chuckle was warm and maybe dark as he stood back from the mattress a foot or two. 

“I am,” he said, quirking an eyebrow and reaching for the hem of his sweater. “Are you sayin’ you wanna watch?” Even as he teased, Steve began lifting the sweater over his own head, removing his heavy winter layers and folding them with Steve’s usual efficiency. He set each folded item off to the side.

Bucky bit down on his own bottom lip as he watched the familiar sight of Steve’s naked, muscled body gradually come into view. “I… like watching.”

Hand on the waistband of his boxer briefs—the sexy, tight black ones that Bucky loved so, _so_ very much—Steve slowed and dragged his heavy-lidded gaze up to meet Bucky’s own.

“Yeah?” he teased. His voice was dense and raspy. He kept his dark eyes locked on Bucky as he slid his last article of clothing down over his almost unbearably masculine thighs. “Well, me too.”

Bucky swallowed hard. It didn’t matter how many times he’d seen his Alpha naked before; the sight of Steve’s huge cock hanging between his legs, flushed with blood and want—want for _Bucky_ —made his heart race and his mouth water every time. He could see Steve’s grin tilt knowingly as he watched Bucky stare.

Clothing finally out of the way, Steve knelt on the mattress again and bent to kiss Bucky on the neck, a wet and possessive thing. He used just enough teeth to make Bucky’s eyes roll, to make him whine and hump his hardening dick down into the pillows.

“Maybe some time we can watch each other,” Steve breathed into his ear, spit-wet lower lip slipping against Bucky’s cheek. “Make a little video for ourselves. Would you like that, baby?”

And _god_ , the idea alone was so fucking filthy that it had Bucky screwing his eyes shut and moaning, long and loud, the sound tapering off at the end into a broken whine that betrayed _exactly_ how much Bucky would ‘like that’. He could feel himself releasing new slick. Steve’s laugh was breathy and throaty when he nipped at Bucky’s earlobe. 

“Yeah? Thought you might like that idea. My darling, dirty boy… _fuck_ I love you.”

“Daddy…”

Steve made a rumbling noise of approval and gave Bucky a final, bruising kiss, this time on his lips, before sitting back and directing Bucky to relax again. Bucky listened and twisted back around, getting comfortable. The teasing and dirty thoughts had him so turned on again already and he was a little nervous, too—not knowing what Steve was going to do if not fuck him—but Bucky knew it was all excitement and no real trepidation. He trusted Steve.

Steve straddled Bucky’s thighs, moving with single-minded purpose now. He planted his knees on the mattress on either side of Bucky’s ass— elevated by the pillows beneath his hips— and Bucky could feel the heavy weight of Steve’s balls resting against the crease of his thighs. Although he couldn’t see behind him, it almost made Bucky shiver to think of how close that thick cock must be to his slick, well-loved entrance. In this position Steve _could_ just angle himself downward, let his weight go, and just like that he would be sinking into Bucky.

But not tonight, Daddy said. Tonight they would be doing something else.

Once situated, Steve took the globes of Bucky’s ass cheeks in his palms and spread them. He thumbed at the slick, smooth skin between them and Bucky let out a little whimper as the slightly cold air in the bedroom made contact with the obscene amount of fluids pooled there. The sound was barely audible above Steve’s gravelly moan.

“ _Jesus_ , sweetheart. Wanna get my dick all wet with you. Fuck.”

Bucky nodded eagerly into his own forearms, huffing out wet little gasps of arousal, pushing his hips up into Steve’s touch delighting in the friction his dick found on the fabric of the pillow. “ _Yeah Daddy_ , yes, please, anything…”

Steve began shifting his weight forward, pushing down on the meat of Bucky’s ass to brace himself, and for a moment Bucky thought that Steve was going to fuck him after all as he felt hot, velvet steel slide between his cheeks. But Steve didn’t push inside him—wouldn’t have done so anyway, not without stretching Bucky’s hole first. Instead, Steve pushed Bucky’s cheeks together with his hands and let his cock slip between them, the glide made easy with all the mess. He pulled back and then shoved forward again until Bucky could feel the wet head of Steve’s cock pass over his tailbone, up onto the curve of his lower back, before Steve was reversing the motion of his hips and the thick tip was pulled back and grazing over the tender muscle of his entrance and _oh_ —

Steve wasn’t fucking his ass, but he was _fucking_ his _ass_.

“Oh god baby boy, look at you— _look_ how wet this pretty cunt is for Daddy, Christ.”

“Steve, oh— _fuck…”_

The next few thrusts forward had more weight behind them, and the motions forced Bucky’s hips down into the pillows, made Bucky’s now fully-hard dick rub up against the fabric even more deliciously than before. Steve’s hands gripped the sides of his ass harder to create a tighter bit of cleavage; a slick, wet tunnel for him to fuck his cock through. Bucky’s insides lit up with the vulgarity of what Steve was doing, the new and lascivious way that Steve was using his body to chase his own pleasure.

“Wanted to do this to you since the first time I laid eyes on your thick little ass, Buck,” Steve said, almost panting now. “So good for your Daddy, _oh,_ god you feel good.”

“Don’t— _don’t stop_ Daddy, feels good, wanna make you come, _oh_.”

Steve began to pick up his pace, causing Bucky’s own dick to grind into the bed at an increased tempo, and Bucky began to realize that he could come like this—with Steve’s erection passing back and forth over his sensitive entrance, the warmth and weight of Steve’s balls grazing over his perineum over and over and over again while Bucky’s own dick got the friction he craved. He started subconsciously grindings his hips up to meet Steve’s thrusts but it was awkward, uncoordinated. 

“Steve, I want… I—” but Bucky didn’t know what he wanted, other than a release for the electric waves dancing under his skin. He found himself unfolding his arms and reaching back, blindly seeking more of Steve’s touch, but Steve just caught Bucky’s hands in his own and paused his thrusts.

“Gimme these pretty hands, c’mere, hold that wrist.” Firmly but gently, Steve pulled Bucky’s hands behind his lower back and maneuvered them until Bucky’s left hand was holding the wrist of his right, both hands held deliciously captive by metallic skin trapping the flesh of the other in-place. “Hold that— _yeah_ , just like this, be good while I fuck over this tight little cunt.”

Bucky moaned high and brokenly into the pillow, awash with how turned on he felt by this new feeling of being helpless and he _begged_ for more, begged “please, yes—yes, _Daddy please yes_ , I’ll be good, please.”

Steve pushed Bucky’s ass cheeks together even tighter than before and resumed fucking through them in earnest. Bucky could hear him panting now, chasing a goal, chasing a feeling. The speed and pressure were absolutely perfect for Bucky’s own dick, still being made to rut down into the bed by each of Steve’s motions. He felt himself getting close already. The noises he made must have given him away.

“Gonna spill all over that pillow, sweetheart? All that rubbing making you feel nice?”

“ _Oh…_ uh-huh, feels… _ngh_ , Daddy, please…”

“Yeah, c’mon, there it is, go on baby. _Wet up your Daddy’s cock_ , make it feel good.”

His orgasm burned through him slowly this time; there was no crashing sensation, no stars, just an ember low in his belly growing into a flame that licked at every cell in Bucky’s body. It was long and intense, and by the time his dick was finally finished spilling out onto the soiled pillowcase Bucky could feel the bulge of Steve’s half-formed knot passing over his hole with each thrust.

“Shit, baby, that was fuckin’ beautiful. You make such pretty noises for me, you know that? Every time. Could feel that tight little hole twitchin’, try’na grab at me, and goddamn— you’re so _wet_.”

Steve adjusted suddenly, moving with new fervor. He fucked forward extra hard a handful of times, letting out virile grunting noises, before settling his weight a little higher up on Bucky’s body. He briefly took one hand away from its grip on Bucky’s ass to tap at Bucky’s right hand—still pinned in-place on his lower back under the grip of his left—and that’s when Bucky noticed that the new position had Steve’s cock thrusting up into Bucky’s open palm.

“ _Grab this thick cock_ , baby boy,” Steve growled, purring when the shaft slid more fully into Bucky’s open hand and Bucky reflexively wrapped around the pulsing heat, holding and pulling, his thumb massaging the sensitive underside of the head to help Steve feel good. “Yeah, just like that, _help Daddy come all over you.”_

With the upper half of Steve’s shaft now snug in Bucky’s grip, Steve stopped thrusting. He started _grinding_ instead, the rapidly filling knot at the base of his cock pressing heavy and blunt against the outside of Bucky’s entrance, rutting into the wetness. Bucky’s lust-torn mind conjured up the image of Steve’s knot popping inside— as though that were possible when Steve wasn’t actually fucking him— and the fantasy of it pulled another strangled moan from Bucky’s spent throat.

“C’mon, Daddy,” he whined, smearing his words into the bedsheets, “make me messy?”

His words apparently broke something in Steve, who groaned loud and hard before taking one hand and grabbing—no, _pushing_ his now pulsing knot down, trapping and squeezing it between the pressure of Steve’s hand and Bucky’s hot, slippery hole. He pushed hard enough to make Bucky’s rim start to stretch a little, the sensation dull and perfect. Steve held the new position with zeal and ground down.

“Please Daddy, please, I want it,” Bucky continued, begging now, unsure whether he was talking about Steve’s impending orgasm or the fat knot teasing at his entrance, asking to be let inside, to be welcomed into Bucky’s body even though it was impossible in their current position for a dozen different reasons, “please, _please_ , all over me, Daddy, make me yours—”

“— fuck, ‘m coming!” Steve warned, even as the first few splashes of come hit all the way up on Bucky’s shoulder blades. 

The drops fell hot and scorching, one after the other, landing on Bucky’s naked body like singed feathers. More of it got on Bucky’s hand, some dripping down his fingers, while more still pooled into the divot on his spine. Streams of thick seed poured out of Steve like it always did when Steve came—endlessly—and Steve groaned through it and kept grinding down into Bucky’s ass, milking his knot against Bucky’s smooth, slick skin. Bucky continued to pump lightly at the shaft with his open hand until Steve stopped him, nudging it away with a tight gasp of overstimulation, and Bucky finally let his own wrist go.

Above him, still straddling Bucky, Steve drew in a shaky breath.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Buck. Your _back_.”

And Steve was right—his fucking _back_. Bucky didn’t even have a visual but he could feel how coated it was with Steve’s come, could feel the rapidly cooling warmth of the liquid, running and dripping over the curves of his body. Between Steve’s body weight pinning him to the bed and the filthy, erotic painting Steve had made of his skin, Bucky had never in his like felt more _owned_.

He loved it. He wanted it again.

“Yours, Daddy,” is what he said.

“Fuck,” Steve swore, sounding besotted, a hitch in his breath betraying something like shock or delight or awe. “You are, aren’t you?”

Steve began tracing his fingers though the mess while he spoke, playing with his own come decorating Bucky’s back. The action felt dirty and thrilling, and _fuck_ , before he could even think it had Bucky moaning, “Rub it in?”

He had never seen Steve acquiesce to a request faster. Using both hands, Steve began to do just what Bucky had asked—rubbing his come into Bucky’s skin, covering Bucky in Steve’s scent, letting musk and pinecone sink into his pores and fill every empty space with Steve Rogers.

“This what you want, baby? Wanna walk around smelling like Daddy?”

Bucky shivered at the power, the lust behind Steve’s voice. “Yes, _please_ , want it all the time.”

Steve continued on with his motions for another minute or so, until all of his scent-laden come had been spread into a thin sheen covering Bucky’s back. Steve pressed some of it into Bucky’s underarms, marrying their two scents together. When Steve was finally done he made a funny huffing noise that had a distinctly ‘caveman’ character to it, which made Bucky smile.

“C’mere, sweetheart.”

Bucky found himself mourning the loss of Steve’s body weight and warmth almost immediately when Steve crawled off of him. He didn’t have to grieve for long, though, because then Steve was lying beside him on the bed and gathering Bucky up into his arms tightly. He melted into the warm embrace so quickly, so happily, that he couldn’t be bothered by the drying pool of Bucky’s own come on the pillows that Steve pushed to the side.

The bed was soft and smelled like them both. As he buried his face in the hollow of Steve’s throat, Bucky felt sleep creep up on him fast. It was like it had been waiting just around the corner, biding its time until the adrenaline of the night could seep away and nothing but sticky-sweet endorphins were left to fill its place.

There were things to talk about—important but exciting—but those things could wait until tomorrow.

“I love you, Bucky.”

And Bucky could actually _smell_ the love on him, with his nose pressed into the skin over Steve’s scent glands. Steve smelled happy, sated, proud. Nothing in his scent was anxious at the moment— not with the snow blanketing the world outside their window and each other’s warmth blanketing their skin.

Bucky grinned dopily where Steve couldn’t see and snuggled himself in closer.

“Mm, love you too, Steve. _Daddy_.”

Steve drew in a long, stuttering breath and tightened his hold around Bucky. “My sweet boy,” he whispered, “s’okay, Daddy will clean all of this up in a minute. Sleep.”

Bucky slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This is a MANTADORY WATER BREAK point.**
> 
> If you have been bingeing this story, you must now get up for a glass of water (and a wine refill, if you're doing this right) and not look at this screen for ten minutes. 
> 
> Don't worry, Alpha Daddy Steve will be waiting for you when you return.


	7. Daddy (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's got a Daddy now.

When Bucky woke up the bed next to him was empty but still warm. That wasn’t unusual; Steve almost always rose before him in the morning, even if he sometimes came back to bed before Bucky awoke. He strained his ears and picked up on the sounds of cabinets opening and closing in the kitchen below. Rolling from his side onto his back, he unfolded into a full body stretch, straightening his toes, pushing his arms up over his head, groaning.

There was a pleasant burn registering in his thighs and hips. His face flushed when he remembered the way Steve had made him hold his own legs while he licked Bucky out, eating his hole, making him fall apart. That first recollection was apparently enough to open a floodgate of others, because then the burn in his hips became a whole-body sensation, an all-over flush, memories from their first evening together in Steve’s cabin bursting back to life in his mind.

His naked dick gave a twitch of interest beneath the quilt at the memory of how Steve’s eyes had darkened each time Bucky called him ‘Daddy’, how obviously and intensely Steve had so loved it. Bucky felt his ribcage loosen in a way he couldn’t recall feeling in that immediate aftermath, held tightly by exhilarating throes of a new passion. In the moment he had completely forgotten to take a breath and allow himself to experience relief, to be glad that the risk he had taken had been received with so much enthusiasm and inexorable _want_. Bucky had suspected that Steve would be into the whole thing from the beginning, that he’d be receptive and keen about the idea—Bucky wouldn’t have gone for it if he hadn’t thought so— but goddamn if Bucky hadn’t apparently nailed a kink that Steve had been hiding completely, or maybe didn’t even know he had. Bucky had gone into the whole night without expectations, and the night had somehow exceeded them anyway.

He wanted to do it all over again.

“Good morning, angel.”

Bucky snapped out of his own thoughts. Steve was leaning in the doorway, hot mugs of what smelled like coffee in each hand. He looked at Bucky with an expression that was impossibly fond.

“Good morning,” Bucky greeted back, pink tickling the tops of his cheeks.

Steve pushed off the doorway with his shoulder and made his way over to the bed, sitting down on the edge next to Bucky.

“How do you feel?”

Bucky almost replied right off the bat, but then he paused and took stock of his body, knowing that's what Steve wanted him to do. Aside from the stiff twinge he had already noticed in his thighs, Bucky noted that he was surprisingly clean, not sticky, his skin not covered in dried come even after the gorgeous, messy finale of their night together. Steve had cleaned him up after Bucky fell asleep, just like Steve had said he would.

“I feel good...” he answered. Bucky couldn’t explain the sudden bashfulness he felt, but it also wasn’t a bad feeling. It felt like butterflies, new all over again despite the months they had already been together, living and breathing each other in. “Really good.”

Steve’s shoulders let go of an almost imperceptible tension he'd been holding.

“Good. I’m glad. Coffee?”

Now that he was up close and Bucky could read Steve’s features, little tells that only Bucky would know to look for, he could see that Steve was also feeling a sense of excited nervousness. Steve had butterflies of his own.

Bucky rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and happily took the mug from Steve. They got themselves situated on the bed, backs against the headboard, Bucky turned halfway and tucked into Steve’s side. The sunlight bouncing off the snow outside was soft across the bedsheets, brightness filtered by the warm-colored drapes of the bedroom. They sipped their coffee in an intimate silence.

“I liked what we did last night.”

Steve’s face showed surprise, like he hadn’t expected Bucky to bring last night up so quickly, but it was only for a moment before his expression morphed into something soft and wanting and maybe a little bit heated.

“So did I. So… so much. I’m so happy you wanted that.”

Bucky grabbed Steve’s coffee from him and set both of their mugs down on the nightstand before crawling into Steve’s lap, getting close, settling, wrapping his arms loosely around Steve’s shoulders. Steve was glad to receive him.

“Is it okay if I want to do it again?” Bucky asked, hopeful but not certain of the answer.

He was relieved to see Steve return a genuine and warm smile, wrapping one arm around Bucky’s waist to pull him in close and sweet, settling the other hand against Bucky’s hip and stroking gently over the bone there with his thumb.

“It’s more than okay, Buck,” Steve said. He leaned forward and took a soft, coffee-flavored kiss. “Whenever you want.”

Bucky grinned shakily against his lips, heart still causing a tickling sensation inside his chest. “Is it okay if I want to do it a lot? I mean we… it doesn’t have to be _all_ the time… just…”

Steve tightened his arm even more around Bucky’s waist. He nudged the cleft of Bucky’s chin with his nose, a pointed and affectionate gesture.

“Buck, we can do that _whenever_ you like. Anytime that’s something you’re feeling like you want, I…” The corner of Steve’s mouth turned up. “I think you know exactly what to say to ask for it.”

Bucky nodded, feeling a little like he was in a dream.

“Daddy,” he answered. The word hot and sultry on his tongue for the first time that day.

Steve beamed back. “That’s right, sweetheart.”

They made out in bed for a long while between sips of coffee, unrushed and lazy, nowhere in the world they had to be. All of the little spaces inside Bucky’s chest felt airy and light. When they eventually parted, Steve patted Bucky’s leg and told him to grab his shower so he could come down for breakfast, which Bucky did. His favorite kind of omelet was still hot and waiting for him when Steve greeted him in the kitchen with yet another kiss.

The sunshine streaming through the dozens of windows throughout Steve's cabin made it clear just how much of a beautiful day it was outside. After breakfast they put on their outdoor wear—including Bucky’s ridiculously expensive snow boots that Steve’s black card had definitely bought—and Steve led them on an easy hike through the woods on his land. Fresh snow had fallen the night before, while he and Steve had been keeping each other warm. Steve smiled and held his hand the entire time they walked, telling Bucky how he used to walk that same path over and over in the months after coming out of the ice, when he’d stayed there in the cabin instead of the city. The delicate snow sitting heavy on the spruce branches made the forest look almost otherworldly.

Bucky took the opportunity to explore the kitchen for himself at lunch time. They enjoyed his gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches together before taking a lazy, indulgent nap on the couch, cozy and warm in front of the fireplace (well-tended, thanks to Steve), curling into each other easily. He couldn’t help but notice that the ‘new couch’ smell from the day before was already beginning to be replaced by their combined scents.

The sun was getting low on the horizon by the time they woke up in the late afternoon. Steve suggested they enjoy the sunset in the hot tub—the fucking _hot tub_ , which apparently was a thing, Bucky learned, a hidden feature down on the heated patio on the bottom level outside the sunroom, facing west. They both wore swim trunks (Steve packed Bucky’s without Bucky knowing), although Bucky couldn’t explain why exactly they did not opt for going nude; everything about Steve’s cabin and even his outdoor hot tub was private and isolated. He thought that maybe it was a desire to have some sort of barrier that they could look forward to peeling away later in the evening.

“You’re the boy of my dreams, you know that?”

Bucky couldn’t help but laugh at the cheesy sentiment as Steve murmured the words into the back of his neck. He was perched comfortably in Steve’s lap, back-to-front, facing the pink and orange views on the horizon with jacuzzi bubbles all around them, Steve’s big arms wrapped around his waist. Steve seemed content cuddling the two of them together, like a kid with their favorite doll, holding Bucky close while he shifted between idle talk and his favorite pastime of licking and kissing and nuzzling the scent glands on Bucky’s neck.

“Always dreamed about having a nerdy Omega that needs your help getting plates off the top shelf, did ya?”

“Yup,” Steve agreed, popping the ‘p’ with a chuckle breathed into Bucky’s shoulder. “Always. ‘Cept before the serum, of course. Then I dreamed of having a nerdy Omega that could help _me_ get plates off the top shelf.”

Bucky giggled, letting them fall back into their cozy, intimate silence. Then Steve began to tickle him—without warning— shocking Bucky into making panicky squealing noises, the water in the hot tub splashing around as Bucky protested through his laughter and tried to squirm away. Steve laughed and relented after a few torturous seconds but didn’t let go of Bucky’s waist.

When he was finally allowed to catch his breath, Bucky turned in Steve’s hold, straddling his lap and facing him. If Steve wanted to tease and play games, Bucky could play one of his own.

“I would have been happy to grab _anything_ for you,” he drawled, watching Steve’s eyes begin to darken when Bucky moved in close and lowered his voice and his eyelashes, “so long as you still fucked me after.”

And _oh_ —if Bucky had been hoping to throw Steve off and get him flustered, it did not work. Steve leaned right into Bucky’s lead and took the reins for himself, fast and sure like he’d been waiting all day for an open window just like this, hands moving down to grip the meat of Bucky’s ass and pulling their hips together. The fresh hunger on his face and purpose in his swift movements made Bucky flush and tremble, letting out an embarrassing whiny noise.

“Oh, don’t you worry sweetheart,” Steve purred low, ghosting his lips over Bucky’s and breathing steam into the winter air, his scent heavy with arousal, his fingers digging into the meat of Bucky's ass and hips. “Maybe I wasn’t as big or as strong back then… but I still would have drilled into you until I had you screaming for _Daddy_.”

Bucky felt like his lungs were empty caverns, his air stolen by impact of the final word in Steve's sentence landing in his ears. He would have thought that he’d be ready to hear Steve refer to himself as ‘Daddy’ for the second time, but he wasn’t, not at _all._ The effect was every bit as intoxicating as it had been the first time—maybe even more. Bucky was responding to Steve’s comment with his voice and his body before he could think twice, moaning, pressing his open mouth against the side of Steve’s head and helplessly whimpering into Steve's ear _, “yeah, Daddy, yeah,”_ soaking up the tremble and groan of Steve’s reaction with their bodies pressed tight.

“Fuck that’s so hot, baby, Christ.” Steve rolled their hips together in one long wave, pressing his hardening line of arousal into Bucky’s own, nipping at the square of Bucky’s jaw sensuously. “You want that, Buck? Yeah? Need your Daddy to take care of you?”

Bucky whined pitifully and followed Steve’s movements with zeal, seeking out the friction on his dick and the tease of fingers so close to his hole, pleading, “ _yeah_ , yes want you now Daddy _please Daddy_ , c’mon, _please_ ,” and oh _god,_ Steve had hardly even touched him and Bucky was begging already.

His lips found Steve’s and they clashed mouths for a moment, wet and open and full of teeth, desperate for each other with Steve at the helm. When Bucky tried to grind his hips down harder Steve suddenly stilled them with the strong hands he had on his body. The loss of friction was so devastating that Bucky thought he might cry.

“Hold on, hold on baby,” Steve warned, pulling his lips away and leaving Bucky to try and chase them. “Slow down. I want to, I promise, and we will. But we should talk about this more first.”

Bucky pouted instantly but he willed himself to obey, sitting in Steve’s lap, actively trying to regather his wits. There was no denying that the scenery and the hot tub and the energy between them made Bucky want to get Steve’s cock in him and he wanted it _now_ —but he also knew Steve had a point. They hadn’t spoken about this since what little they’d talked on the subject that morning.

Steve praised him for calming down, petting his hair. Bucky soaked it all up eagerly.

“Last night was perfect, sweetheart. But we need to discuss some things about how this is going to go from now on. How are you feeling right now? Are you okay to talk about it here?”

Bucky considered Steve’s concern and checked in with himself. He was still hard in his swim shorts and he could feel Steve was, too, but at least his head was clearing up a bit. He could be coherent if Steve needed that from him.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he answered, blinking and shaking his head like he was trying to loosen some of the arousal fogging up his brain. “Sorry, I just… got kinda excited I guess.”

Steve smiled fondly and gave him a closed-mouth kiss. “I love how much you love this, so much. Can we start by talking about what you’re looking for?”

Bucky furrowed his brow, confused. He had assumed Steve just wanted to talk about kinky stuff or safe words or something.

“What do you mean?”

Steve tucked a lock of hair behind Bucky’s ear, a bit wet after their splashing.

“I want to know exactly what it is you’re looking to experience from this… dynamic,” he explained, his tongue rolling the last word around in his mouth like he was trying to taste it. “I think I know a lot of the answer already, but I want to hear it from you. What we do together can be a lot of different things, can be whatever we want, but I wanna be on the same page." Steve paused to lick his lips. "When you call me ‘Daddy’, what do _you_ want?”

And Bucky… hadn’t actually considered that Steve might ask that question.

Sitting in the passenger’s seat on the drive to Vermont, Bucky had spent some time on his phone researching this particular dynamic—researching ‘ _Daddy kink’_. He knew now that a lot of people experimented with it, that it had been growing in mainstream popularity in recent years. Bucky himself had been at least curious about the idea since before he even met Steve, though there had not been anyone in his life that he wanted or trusted enough to actually experiment with.

Bucky knew that what they were doing together had nothing to do with some sort of parental fantasy, or even an age-play thing. When he’d called Steve ‘Daddy’ and Steve called Bucky his ‘boy’, those names weren’t parts in some unsettling role play; they were _titles_ , a recognition of their respective positions within a consensually agreed-upon power imbalance. And while Bucky had no experience with what he usually thought of as the ‘BDSM scene', he also knew that his submission to a soft kind of dominance—power and control, steeped in intrinsic tenderness—was central to the Daddy dynamic. It had been that element in particular that drew Bucky to the idea in the first place, in hopes that maybe being Bucky’s ‘Daddy’ might do something to assuage Steve’s more deep-rooted issues about sex and his own instincts. He’d had this far-fetched, dreamy idea that maybe by making himself vulnerable and asking Steve to just _let go_ and be Daddy and take care of Bucky in that vulnerable state, then Steve might discover a less burdened path for himself to find peace with his own nature. With his own _desires_.

Steve was still looking at him. He was expecting an answer, but patiently.

“I want…” Bucky began, chewing on his bottom lip but losing words before they could fully come to him.

He tried not to feel nervous. He definitely tried not to _look_ like he was nervous, but he also knew that it was okay if he was. Steve would be okay with it, and he would be okay with Steve. The place they held in each other’s arms was safe for both of them.

“I want, um. You know how you sometimes tell me what to do and make, like— decisions for me, knowing that no one else gets to do that? Just you? I love that. I like being reminded that I’m _yours_. And I love knowing that I’m being good for you. But I also, just…”

When Bucky had decided to take the risk and really _go_ for it the day before—to dive headfirst into a kink experiment with nothing but a hunch and a curiosity and a will to make things work— he had mostly been thinking about what Steve needed. Bucky had never stopped to think about why he might have wanted this for _himself_ , too.

Glancing away and down at the jacuzzi jets, Bucky tried to think of the right words. It felt like too much to say all at once.

“I guess I just… like it when you take care of me?”

He looked back up to find Steve’s brow in a furrow.

“Bucky, I’m _always_ gonna take care of you, we don’t—”

“—I know you do that anyways, it’s not like just a… kink thing. I know that. But I love that you always seem to know when I need something, you know? Even if I don’t really know it myself? And I guess what I want is for that to, like…”

As Bucky rambled, Steve’s expression softened. His eyes simultaneously grew darker. One of the hands on Bucky’s hip gave him a firm squeeze that felt like an understanding.

“You want that in bed, too,” Steve finished for him. “And out of it, sometimes. You want me to know what you need and give it to you. You want a space to be able to let go. Is that right, sweetheart?”

And just like that, it suddenly clicked with Bucky just how much he had always wanted this, had wanted exactly what Steve was talking about. With _Steve_. This wasn’t really about trying something new to fix an issue, wasn’t just a new and sexy approach to some problem. Bucky understood with absolute clarity now how much he had wanted this, and _would_ want this, regardless of whether Steve ever knotted him again. Knots had nothing to do with it. Bucky wanted to be taken care of in every way, and Steve already knew exactly how to do it—was doing it right now, even, putting a pause on their heavy petting to make sure that he knew exactly what Bucky wanted so he could give it to him. So Bucky could be free to let himself go.

It was never about Bucky wanting a knot. It was about Bucky wanting a _Daddy_.

“Yeah,” Bucky answered. “I—I want that. I want you, I want you to do all of that.”

Steve grinned, ear to ear.

“Then that’s what I want, Buck,” he said, threading his fingers into Bucky’s hair and massaging gently. “But that means that I’m gonna have a few rules for you. I’ll go first, and then you’ll tell me what your rules are.”

This part Bucky had expected, although if he was being honest with himself he didn’t know what kind of rules he would even _have_ , not knowing yet how far they would be taking this… thing. He didn’t worry on it much for now, though; he knew that he could always talk to Steve if something came up and he wanted to address it. Bucky’s trust in his Alpha was absolute.

Steve scraped his fingernails lightly and soothingly along Bucky’s scalp, causing him to close his eyes and tilt his head back in a relaxed bliss.

“Can you guess what the first rule is?”

A quiet, husky moan escaped through Bucky’s parted lips when he heard the patronizing tone of Steve’s voice, understood what Steve was doing. Maybe they were keeping their clothes on for this conversation, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t have some fun in their roles while they talked.

Bucky nodded, breathed out, “safe words, Daddy,” because he had done his research and he knew how this was supposed to go.

“Good _boy_ ,” Steve cooed, and oh, fuck—it that didn’t feel like a bucket of warm molasses being poured straight down Bucky’s spine. “You’re gonna use your words whenever you need to, and whenever I ask you to check in with me. They’re just like traffic lights, okay?”

Steve waited for Bucky to lift his eyelids, make eye contact, nod.

“Good. Red means _stop_ ; you say ‘red’, Buck, and we stop—no questions asked—and you’ll still be my perfect sweet boy, and we can go back to doing anything else you want. Okay?”

“Okay, Daddy,” Bucky whispered back, voice sounding almost slurred for no reason at all other than his tongue felt like lead in his mouth.

“Good. So good. Okay, what do you say if you don’t like something we’re doing and you wanna stop?”

“Red.”

Steve beamed. “Perfect. Next, yellow means wait, slow down, ease up, and then I do just that. Okay? Green means go. If I check in with you, you only tell me ‘green’ if you like what we’re doing, okay? You don’t _ever_ say ‘green’ just because you think that’s what I want to hear.” His fingers moved down to pet at the nape of Bucky’s neck. “Got that?”

Bucky moaned, head lolling and nodding just the tiniest bit to show his affirmative response.

“I expect an answer, baby boy,” Steve said, low and authoritative in a way that made Bucky squirm in his lap.

"Yes."

That earned him an appreciative groan. “Such a good boy, sweetheart. You got your safe words, you ready for my second rule?”

“ _Mm_.”

Steve gave him a proud, happy smile before his face settled into something more serious. The hand on his neck tightened in the little hairs there, forcing Bucky to bring his head out of the clouds and meet Steve’s darkening eyes.

“My second rule is that Daddy’s in charge. Period. You’re my sweet boy,” he rumbled, darkly, lovingly, “and you’re going to do everything I say, because _I_ asked you to. I’m going to check in with you a lot, especially at the beginning, but if you don’t like what I’m asking or you don’t want to do something, all you need to do is use red or yellow. Don’t wait until it escalates to red. If you’re not comfortable with something, you tell me right away and we’ll stop, or we’ll adjust. Understood?”

“Yes Daddy,” Bucky nodded. Steve was at command; Bucky _liked_ that rule.

“Good. Let’s go over that one. Can you tell me who’s in charge here?”

Bucky leaned in until their foreheads were touching, closing his eyes for a moment, imagining that Steve could feel Bucky’s sense of surrender and relaxation flowing over into him. He needed Steve to know exactly how much he wanted what they were doing. He hoped that Steve could smell it on him.

“You’re in charge, Daddy,” he answered with breath, a puff of words spoken just inches from Steve’s lips.

Steve groaned, tilting his head to the side so he could capture Bucky’s mouth in a quick but commanding kiss. “So perfect for me, Buck.”

They kissed more for a sweet, long while, but then stopped— _Steve_ stopped—before things got too heated. He made Bucky pull back a few inches, and Bucky saw the way that Steve was biting his own bottom lip, apple red. He began to run his hand lightly over the back of Bucky’s neck as his expression sunk into something more thoughtful, if not a little reserved.

“Is it… is it okay if Daddy uses his grip on you sometimes?” he asked, lightly squeezing his hand over its spot on Bucky’s nape to demonstrate his meaning. It wasn’t yet an Alpha’s _grip,_ but it didn’t matter. Bucky felt light-headed instantly.

“ _Yes_ ,” Bucky gasped, without hesitation, moaning at the very thought before he could catch the noise.

“Sweetheart… are absolutely sure about that?”

The light pressure on the back of his neck felt like such a tease now that Bucky was thinking about what it could be instead, if Steve wanted it to be. Steve had used his Alpha grip on Bucky exactly once before: when Bucky was in Heat. It was a biological tool, given to Alpha's by their nature to help panicky Omegas settle down while in heat—or be _held_ down, so they could be mated. Most Alphas never used their grips at all these days, and any Alpha with a sense of morality certainly didn’t use it to make an Omega do something against their will. Still, Bucky also knew that Alpha grips were widely celebrated as an exciting part of a couple’s kink toybox, if used consensually between them and their Omega.

But all of these thoughts were far more complicated than the one Bucky really had on his mind—his own visceral and almost feral reaction to Steve’s suggestion—coming out in a whimpery response of, “yes, yes, _please_ , Daddy.”

Steve gave a fond chuckle at Bucky’s eager reaction. “Okay. Let’s try it out first though, okay? Wanna make sure you can still use your safe words if you need them.”

And then Steve’s hand clamped down on the scruff of his neck and _fuck_ , Bucky might have come in his swim shorts if every single muscle in his body weren’t suddenly made of pudding. He let out an entirely involuntary whine of euphoric elation and Steve grinned, pleased.

“So sweet for me, baby. Can you tell me your color right now?”

“ _Green,”_ Bucky rasped, everything suddenly feeling dreamy and shiny and flawless.

“Hm,” Steve hummed, “gonna need that a little louder Buck. Need to make sure I can always hear you.” Then he tightened his grip even more, a perfect demand, and Bucky sank further down like Steve’s lap was made of quicksand. “Give me your color.”

“ _Green_!” Bucky keened, trying his best to project his voice.

Steve was apparently pleased enough with it. He let go and started petting along Bucky’s sides humming lightly and smiling, thinking.

“You are _perfect_ , sweetheart,” Steve said, giving him a chaste kiss. “Ready for Daddy’s last rule?”

Bucky nodded, his nervous system slowly creeping back to normalcy after Steve released his grip.

“My last rule is that you get to come whenever you want, as many times as you want. You don’t need to ask permission.”

The ‘rule’ seemed almost odd at first, in Bucky’s slightly hazy brain. Steve had never hinted at wanting to control Bucky’s orgasms before and he apparently didn’t wish to do so now (even if Bucky definitely could have been into that). Was it a rule at all if it was the same thing that happened when Steve… _wasn’t_ his Daddy?

“But,” Steve continued, biting the 't' and interrupting Bucky’s train of thought with a wandering hand heading down between his thighs. “You don’t get to touch your dick, unless I say you can.”

Bucky let out a high whine, his eyes going wide with shock. He had definitely not seen that coming, and he didn’t know how he felt about it, other than… strongly. It wasn’t that he _needed_ his dick to be able to come—he knew that, and Steve definitely knew that—but the fact that he wouldn’t be able to just reach down and touch himself whenever he wanted, wouldn’t be able to take the edge off… would be at Steve’s complete mercy?

The thought was so heady he could cry.

If Bucky wasn’t already feeling like a puddle of goo, he would panicked. Steve seemed to sense this and shushed him, using his hand to pet at the back of his neck, like a reminder of what he could do to bring Bucky to calm if he chose to.

“No, baby— baby _listen_ ,” Steve fussed. “If I tell you to touch yourself, then you can. You can even ask Daddy to touch it for you, and you know what? I just might. But I promise to be so sweet to you if you can follow this rule. I’ll be _good_ to you; Daddy won’t tease just to be mean.” He squeezed Bucky’s waist comfortingly and kissed the tip of his nose. “Are you okay with this rule? That’s why we’re talking now. You get a say in this, sweetheart.”

Bucky thought about it. He thought about the time that Steve had fucked him up against a wall and he hadn’t had a free hand to touch his own dick, had to plead and wait for Steve to do it for him. He thought about what it would be like to be on the edge of an orgasm and to ask Daddy to touch him, to stroke him to completion, to have Steve tell Bucky that he should _come on Daddy’s cock_ instead and oh… Bucky wanted it. He wanted to surrender control over his own pleasure to Steve, and he wanted Steve to have it.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I—yes, Daddy. Green.”

Steve smiled broadly and captured Bucky’s lips once more. His pride in Bucky for using their color system already came through loud and clear in his kiss.

“You’re amazing, sweetheart,” Steve praised. “Do you have any rules for me?”

Bucky took a moment to think. He tried to remember if he’d read anything on the internet that he should be bringing up, any kink best practices or… whatever. They’d already covered the communication portion, the safe words, which Bucky had gathered in his research was the most important part. He knew he could always talk to Steve later if he thought of something after this conversation. Still… maybe it wasn’t the kind of thing Steve had in mind, but Bucky wondered if he should put voice to one of the little nagging thoughts that was poking around in the back of his mind. He decided to shoot his shot.

“Just one,” Bucky said. “A request, I guess. I… I want you to try not to hold back.”

“Oh, Buck.” Steve barked out a surprised chuckle. “Holding back is… it’s kind of a necessity when you can do what I can. You’d have a couple of broken hips already if I didn’t.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the weird zing of arousal Steve’s comment drew from his lizard brain. He could get his back blown out later.

“That’s not what I _mean_.”

“What _do_ you mean, then?” Steve asked, smiling, cupping half of Bucky’s face in one hand and affectionately stroking the skin over Bucky’s cheekbone with the pad of his thumb.

“I just… If you want something, you should just go for it. Okay? Don’t hold back because you assume I don’t want it, or… whatever. You can always ask if you’re really not sure, but if there’s something you want, chances are I probably want it, too.”

Steve watched Bucky’s face the entire time he talked, listening, smile melting away and brow smoothing over as his expression morphed into a look of arousal complicated by something Bucky couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“I know you do, baby,” Steve said, low, voice much too somber and quiet in the context of the rest of their conversation. “I think that’s what scares me most.”

And Bucky… didn’t know what to make of that. He wanted to ask what Steve meant but he didn’t get the chance before the question was being kissed away from his mind and licked off of the tip of his tongue.

Once more they got lost in each other’s mouths, but this time they allowed it of themselves; the important conversation was done, the rest of the night laid before them. Steve got back to grinding their hips together, his heavy cock now rubbing up and over Bucky’s sensitive, slickening hole through the scratchy fabric of the swimwear.

“I have an idea,” Steve rumbled, pulling back. “Why don’t you let me get you naked on our bed and I’ll tell you _exactly_ what Daddy wants to do to you. And then I'll _do_ it. Yeah? Then you’ll see how well I can follow that rule for you.”

Bucky whimpered and nodded, suddenly feeling overcome and weak with his lust for Steve—for his _Daddy_ — whispering a broken string of _“oh”_ and _“yes”_ and _“please”_ into Steve’s bearded jawline.

Steve grinned like a wolf at dinner after seeing the way his words affected Bucky.

“Oh honey, that’s it—that’s what you needed from Daddy isn’t it?” He nipped at Bucky’s lower lips sharply before bolstering his grasp on Bucky’s ass and standing them up, the sharp bite of the winter nipping at Bucky’s wet back. “C’mon, sugar, let’s go inside.”

Steve set Bucky’s feet down on the floor of the heated sunroom and handed him a huge bath towel before quickly and efficiently returning to cover the hot tub and turn it off. They each stripped off their wet swim shorts, leaving them to dry on hooks by the expansive windows. It came as no surprise after feeling it under his lap in the tub for so long but _god_ — Steve’s cock was looking big and flushed and hard enough to pound nails. He wanted it inside him.

Bucky got a knowing smirk from his Alpha as he stood naked, watching Steve’s erection disappear from sight once more when Steve wrapped a towel around his own waist. Flustered, Bucky went to do the same but Steve stopped him. He scooped Bucky into his arms and carried him upstairs naked, the same way he had the night before.

Once up top, Steve laid Bucky down on the bed, running his own discarded towel over both of them once more to catch stray droplets.

“Gonna tell you every little thing I wanna do to you, sweet boy,” Steve purred, crawling over Bucky and covering his bared body with the warmth and breadth of his own. “And then I’m gonna do them. All of them.”

Bucky’s moan was almost a _wail_ , his body shivering but not from being cold. His dick was so hard and his hole was leaking, hot and slicked, filling up the room with the scent of how much he wanted Steve to follow through with that promise. Steve made a rumbling sound of approval and nipped at the cleft of Bucky’s chin.

“That’s right… Every single thing Daddy says he wants, he’s gonna _take_. And you got your safe words. That what you want, sweetheart? Tell me.”

“I— _oh_ —need—”

“Tell Daddy,” Steve ordered, intensity picking up as he slid his hands underneath Bucky and dug his fingers into the flesh of his ass. “You want what I said? Give Daddy a color.”

“I—! Green, _green_ , please.”

Steve crushed their lips together in a bruising kiss that felt like a reward. “Good boy,” he rasped when he pulled back, mouthing around on Bucky’s jawline wetly. “Jesus, sweetheart. Wanna tell you about every little thing I want, wanna tell you about them _while_ I’m doin’ them. Wanna make you feel so good.”

Bucky felt like melted chocolate, lying in a sticky puddle on the bed while he let Steve rut their erections together, knees hooked desperately around Steve’s calves.

“Know what I wanna do to you first, babydoll?” Steve breathed out, hot on Bucky’s face. Bucky made a mewling sound that was supposed to be ‘yes’, but then Steve’s hand was reaching between them and closing around his dick and coherence became a very lofty goal. “Wanna take this sweet prick in my mouth and suck on it.”

Bucky moaned and nodded, his head full of the scent of roasting pine cones and of fractals of want, of need, of _yes, Daddy, yes._ Steve grinned and slunk down Bucky’s body, stopping along the way to place hot, smacking kisses on each of his nipples, licking a wet line down his midsection until he arrived at his destination. He drank in the sight of Bucky’s dick in his hand.

“Look at this hard little thing, sweetheart,” Steve cooed, and an almost violent shudder ran through Bucky’s body at the sheer eroticism of hearing his Daddy talk down about his dick, hearing him call Bucky _little_ even though they both knew Bucky—even if he was almost half of Steve’s ridiculous size—was quite well-endowed for an Omega. “‘S leaking for me, love. Fits so perfect in Daddy’s mouth, doesn’t it? Yeah, wanna show you, lemme _show_ you.”

Bucky’s nails dug into the quilt when Steve took Bucky into his hot, wet mouth, taking all of him easily in one swallow. His skin felt like it was made alternatingly of ice and flame as he looked down at Steve hollowing his cheeks, maintaining eye contact with Bucky while he began to bob his head and _suck_.

“Oh _god_ Daddy—! Oh god ohgod _ohgod_.”

Steve hummed and rolled Bucky’s balls in one hand, tugging on them lightly in time with the pumping of his mouth on Bucky’s weeping shaft. _Jesus_ , Steve was so good at this; always had been, since the very first time he went down on Bucky. Bucky had never been with a partner who loved sucking dick so much, and certainly not an Alpha. Steve had incredible technique with his tongue and a perfect sense of how to pace things, a natural talent for knowing what he needed to do with his mouth to make Bucky go crazy before drawing back him from those sharp peaks of pleasure, just enough to pull him back down, just enough to give it sweet pause before bringing him up high again.

After a minute, Steve pulled off, and the obscene ‘pop’ noise that came with his mouth losing suction made Bucky whine and spread his legs wider without having to think.

“ _Mm_ , sweetheart, that’s it,” Steve groaned against the side of Bucky’s dick, pushing a hand under Bucky’s balls and thumbing at the wetness he found at Bucky’s clenching hole. “Wanna get some fingers in you while I suck you.”

The words made Bucky feel almost frantic with need, moaning wildly, shoving his hands down to wind his fingers into Steve’s hair. “ _Daddy_ … need it, yes, _please_.”

Steve teased him with a few wet licks to the flushed head of Bucky’s dick, chuckling.

“Oh, baby boy… Daddy wasn’t asking. You told me if I wanted to do something then I should just do it, right?” Before Bucky could answer Steve pressed two thick fingers into him, sliding slow and deep, the stretch palpable but sweet and welcomed. “And what I _want_ is to work you open for Daddy’s big cock. So...” He emphasized the word with an almost mean twist of his fingers that had Bucky nearly screaming at the sudden pressure on his sweet spot. “That’s what I’m gonna do to you.”

Steve had always been phenomenal with dirty talk, something that used to strike Bucky as strange given how reserved he could be talking about sex outside the bedroom. But oh, Jesus— _Daddy’s_ dirty mouth ran on a whole new level. Bucky didn’t know how he was supposed to handle it, how he could be expected to lay there and listen to it without immediately coming on Steve’s fingers and tongue, orgasms wrung out by the squeeze of Steve’s heady words.

“You like that, sweetness?” Steve teased, mouth coming off Bucky’s dick like a goddamn mind reader. “You like it when Daddy talks to you? Tells you what he wants, how he’s gonna get it?”

“ _Yes_ , Daddy,” Bucky begged, squirming, blushy and heated. “Please don’t stop, _please_!”

“Don’t worry Buck, it’s like I told you earlier—gonna tell you all the things I wanna do to you _while_ I’m doin’ them,” and then as Steve paused the pumping of his hand to add a third finger, he continued, “and right _now_ , I wanna work my way up to getting four of my fingers inside you. Wanna see how good you stretch for me, how pretty you open up on my hand. Here’s your first three, honey.”

Bucky thought he was going to pass out when Steve started to pump his fingers again at the same time he returned to sucking his dick. The wet squelching from his own slick filled the air, Steve’s hot mouth adding to the noises with lascivious slurping. A coil began to tighten in Bucky’s hot insides.

“ _Daddy_ ,” Bucky moaned, “Daddy I don’t wanna come yet, ‘s too soon, you gotta— _oh_!”

Steve pulled his mouth off just long enough to answer. “Well that’s just too bad sweetheart,” he said, tone feigning regret, “‘cause Daddy _wants_ to make you come, Daddy wants you to fill up his mouth like a good boy,” and then Steve was swallowing him down to the root and curling his fingers straight into Bucky’s prostate.

Bucky _came_.

His orgasm was wet—the kind of wet that only happened when Steve had been teasing at his sweet spot with light but consistent pulses, methodically working the slick out of his glands in little beats and thumps while Bucky clenched down on his fingers. Steve swallowed his load just like he promised—rather audibly—but Bucky could feel his finger-stuffed hole soaking the quilt, suddenly glad that Steve seemed to have piles upon piles of extra blankets and quilts and throws (if Steve _let_ Bucky change it, let Bucky switch it out for something that wasn’t drenched in their scents, which he knew very well might not be the case). He let Bucky’s dick fall from his mouth but otherwise did not let up, didn’t give Bucky a real chance to come down, working in a fourth finger even while Bucky’s walls were still clamping and loosening around the stretch.

 _“Good boy,”_ Steve purred, voice sounding raspy and a little bit used. He shifted his way up Bucky’s naked body until they were face-to-face again and Steve was caging Bucky in with his broad frame, supporting his weight on the elbow of the arm that didn’t have half a hand inside Bucky’s body.

Bucky felt lightheaded. His nerves were awash with the aftershocks of his orgasm and the oversensitivity from Steve’s still-moving fingers, singed with the echoes of all of Steve’s filthy language in his ears. His brain reeled from the taste of himself on his Alpha’s tongue when Steve kissed him.

“ _So_ good for me,” Steve murmured against Bucky’s lips. He pushed his huge, heavy erection into the joining of Bucky’s groin and inner thigh, a reminder of what was still to come. “Gonna feel pretty and tight around this thick cock, sweet boy, just like you are around these fingers.” Steve rotated his wrist a few times and flexed the digits, trying out the stretch and the give, testing. “You think you’re ready to take your Daddy’s cock now?”

Bucky nodded fervently, moaning, sweating.

“Please,” he begged, “ _please_ , ‘m ready Daddy.”

Steve made a hungry growling noise and pulled his fingers out. His hand was dripping with slick. Bucky watched, captivated, as Steve made an indecent show of licking up his pinky and ring fingers right in front of Bucky’s face. Some of it dripped down onto Bucky’s cheek and Steve licked it off, returning to suck off whatever remained on those two fingers but leaving his middle and index fingers untouched. He leveled Bucky with a filthy and dark look.

“Want you to taste yourself while I watch.”

Steve spoke the words even as he was already pressing those two drenched fingers against Bucky’s lips and Bucky was _opening_ for them, too destroyed by the obscene eroticism of the moment to think twice or to want anything else than what Steve wanted to give him. Steve moaned at the sight, fingering Bucky’s mouth almost like he had Bucky’s hole and watching Bucky’s lips close around the sticky flesh, Bucky’s eyelids falling, enraptured by the lewdness of the action and the taste of himself. He felt warm and loved and like he was halfway underwater and he _loved_ it.

“Oh _fuck_ , sweetheart—c’mere,” Steve groaned, pulling his fingers out and shoving his hand into Bucky’s hair, tugging their lips together. _“Daddy wants that mouth now.”_

Steve grabbed him and kissed him so deep, so thoroughly that Bucky thought he was trying to steal the oxygen right out of his lungs. He licked every inch of Bucky’s mouth like he wanted to reclaim the taste of Bucky’s slick for himself, searching and licking and sucking. They breathed only each other.

“Wanna fuck you now,” Steve whispered, wet, “wanna show you how Daddy takes care of you. Gives you what you need. Check in with me, sweetheart, how’s your color lookin’?”

Bucky whimpered and nodded, said, “green, yes, _yes_.” He felt overwhelmed and needy and sweet as he watched Steve pull up onto his knees so that he was kneeling on the bed between Bucky’s legs, looking down like a man fighting addiction as he soaked in the image of Bucky spread out on his back below him, every part of him laid out at his Daddy’s mercy. The expression on Steve’s face made Bucky feel like he was made from sugar and chocolate and gold.

“Sweet boy… you got no idea how much Daddy wants to wreck you.”

Then Steve grabbed one of Bucky’s spread thighs and pushed it back into Bucky’s chest, using the other hand to fist his own cock. He gave it a few short pumps before guiding it to Bucky’s readied entrance and pressing—not quite pushing, but _pressing_ , enough of a tease that Bucky found himself clenching and releasing and trying to suck the tip into himself. It worked, to an extent. He could feel the pleasant burn as his body opened to the blunt force.

Steve looked down at the whole thing with a breathless groan, face and neck and chest tinged pink. Bucky mewled pathetically. His own cheeks and dick were flushed with blood at the thought of how closely Steve was looking at the place where they were connected, how intensely he was being examined while his body was stretched open. Steve was still talking, murmurs mostly, practically narrating what he was seeing. Every word out of Steve’s mouth felt like a special kind of torture. It was a kind that Bucky would gladly endure, if it meant every fantasy he’d ever had would continue unravelling in front of his eyes.

When the head of Steve’s cock popped in all the way Steve paused a moment, hips stilling, to trace over their joining with his thumb. With as taut and stretched as his ring of muscle was, Bucky could feel the sensations from Steve’s thumb from both outside _and_ inside his body.

“ _Goddamn_ , sweetheart. Wish you could see this, see the way your sweet little hole is stretched so tight over Daddy’s big cock. Looks like I’m gonna split you in half, babydoll. _Fuck_.”

Then Steve leaned in and gave him a slow, achingly tender kiss, carefully laying his body flush against Bucky’s with just his cockhead snug inside. Bucky needed _more_.

“Should Daddy tell you how he likes to fuck you, honey? You wanna hear how Daddy wants to take care of you?”

“Oh, _fuck_ —yes, Daddy, tell me, don’t stop, please? Need it, need _more_.”

“Mm,” Steve hummed, pulling out not even half an inch before working himself back in, making Bucky take barely millimeters more and going so much more slowly than both Steve and Bucky knew was necessary. He did it again, and again. Bucky wanted to _cry_. “This part I always wanna take slow. Because Daddy knows he’s big, baby. Never want to hurt you.”

Bucky was about to protest, about to beg, about to break down in tears and demand that Steve give him more when Steve finally pushed in another full inch. It was still far too little but it felt _enormous_ to Bucky, like the biggest win in the world. He wanted the next inch.

“Daddy,” Bucky choked, filled to the brim and still overwhelmed with how empty he felt, “Daddy please, more, _please_.”

“Oh babydoll… be quiet for a moment. Remember? Daddy’s trying to tell you how he takes care of you. I can’t do that if you’re arguing with me.”

Then Steve pulled almost all the way out and sunk back in, stopping with still only a quarter of his cock inside, circling and grinding but not going any deeper. The tears came.

“Fuck, Daddy…”

“Color, sweetheart,” Steve commanded, voice low, tilting Bucky’s chin up with one finger so their eyes were locked.

“Green,” Bucky said quickly, sniffling. He wanted Steve’s cock, wanted _all_ of it, but not as much as he wanted to keep being good for Steve and to take what Steve gave him. Steve would always take care of him.

“Sweet boy,” Steve cooed. He kissed the tears from Bucky’s cheeks. “Did you know that your eyes get bluer when they’ve got tears in them?”

Bucky’s throat attempted something like a snotty giggle, but the noise was cut off by a ragged moan when Steve wrapped a hand around his now fully hard dick and _stroked_. His hips made a few tight circles that took maybe another half inch.

“I know honey, I know how hard it is like this. It’s hard for Daddy, too. I want to fuck you but not as much as I want to take care of you, so I wait. Right here, right after you’ve just started to let me in I’m so ready to just _fuck_ you, I slow all the way down. I wait, because that’s what I want to do. I always want to let your sweet little body tell me how much it can take, when it’s ready for a little _more_ of me.”

Just as Steve said ‘more’ his hips gave just that, pulling out and then sinking back as Steve said: with a little more. Steve kissed him sweetly and kept up the tortuous pace until he was almost all the way inside, minutes later even though it felt like days to Bucky. Once their hips were almost flush Steve pulled back, sitting on his knees again, sliding one hand under Bucky’s ass for leverage and pushing forward as he pulled, opposite forces working together to wedge his cock in that final distance.

“God, look at that,” Steve mumbled, quiet. It sounded like he really was just talking just to himself this time, and the notion made Bucky hot in his fucking bones. “That’s _my_ sweet boy, all slicked up, taking _my_ cock.”

“Daddy,” Bucky croaked, feeling full and perfect and devastated already. The word seemed to break Steve’s hypnosis. “Daddy, will you please fuck me?”

Steve grinned. He sank back down onto his elbows, buried in Bucky, kissing Bucky.

Then the bed frame started to move.

Steve _fucked_ him, his seemingly endless well of patience from before now dry and used up. He alternated between folding Bucky in half— fucking him with his legs slung over Steve’s shoulders while he abused Bucky’s prostate—and holding Bucky’s ass cheeks open with his broad hands while Steve watched from up on his knees. He slammed in over and over and _over_ and he never once shut his mouth, talking the entire time, telling Bucky every little detail about what he wanted to do to him right before he did it.

_“Wanna make you come, Buck.”_

Steve’s hand was in Bucky’s hair and tugging just enough to guide and dominate his neck movements, to keep Bucky’s face where Steve wanted it, just an inch below where he was hovering and leaning down to nip at Bucky’s lower lip and whisper all those filthy things into Bucky’s mouth. He kept his hips rolling in hard, in painfully well-timed and precise waves, fucking into him perfect like he was trying to meticulously take Bucky apart with just his just his cock— which, of course, he was.

Bucky felt his orgasm approaching fast and tried to warn Steve, who bit down hard on Bucky’s lip, never changing the movement of his hips. He was so close, and he instinctively shot his hand down to his dick before catching himself. Steve, who had clearly seen the movement—seen the _correction_ —groaned loudly and slammed in especially hard.

“ _Fuck_ yes, that’s my good baby boy. So fucking good for Daddy.”

 _God_ , but Bucky was so close he thought he could actually taste it now. He wanted to come and he wanted to be good and follow Daddy’s rules, and oh god _oh god_ he needed to come, needed to ask for his dick to be touched, needed to plead, _“Daddy can I—”_

Steve’s answer started with an almost frightening growl.

“Do you _need_ to touch your dick to come?”

And then Steve was fucking him even _harder_ and, oh _—_ _fuck_. Lying there on his back with his brain in shambles Bucky found himself wondering exactly _how_ hard Steve was really going; what level of exertion did Steve even need to fuck him like this, to make a headboard sound like it was going to punch holes in the wall? How hard was he going— ten percent capacity? Less? And then suddenly all Bucky could think about was what Steve had said earlier, about having to hold his strength back by necessity. Steve could never actually fuck him as hard as he was capable of, since it would almost certainly kill the smaller man— and damn, if _that_ wasn’t a thought, that Steve could actually fuck him to _death_ if he wanted to? That no matter how hard Steve was fucking him, he would always be able to fuck him _harder_?

“Answer me, Bucky. Do you need it?”

“No!” Bucky cried, “no, don’t stop, don’t—”

“Not gonna stop, gonna fuck this come right out of you with just my cock, gonna make my baby feel good in this wet cunt.” Steve accentuated the last work with a sharp nip over Bucky’s neck, the skin of his scent gland. “ _Come on Daddy’s cock, sweet boy._ You’ve been so good for me, so good.”

Bucky came all over his own stomach, intense enough to feel a splash on one of his nipples. His body clenched down on Steve’s cock so hard he thought he was going to pass out, all the blood in his body rushing to the muscles in his ass to clamp onto Steve’s length and try and milk it, to try and get Steve to come, too. And Steve definitely was close, if the way that his groaning now bordered on _roaring_ was any indication.

“Steve!” Bucky moaned out, desperate, “Daddy, _Daddy_ , wanna make you—”

_“—I’m not done fucking you, sweetheart.”_

Steve crushed Bucky’s words inside his own mouth with a brutal kiss, hips not stopping, fucking and fucking and chasing a pleasure that was close enough to be tangible to them both. Suddenly there was a hand on Bucky’s dick and he yelped, horrendously oversensitive, drained and starting to go soft in Steve’s palm.

“ _There_ it is,” Steve growled, uneven and low in Bucky’s ear. “See that, baby? Daddy did what he wanted. Daddy took care of his sweet boy, took care of what’s mine. And you know what I want to do now?”

Bucky made another whining noise, a pitiful non-answer to Steve’s non-question. Steve let Bucky’s poor dick go in favor of shoving up on his elbow, leaving space to look down at Bucky’s face. Steve’s fair skin was reddened by flush, hair almost dripping with sweat. He looked like every bit the beast of a man that had been ripping Bucky apart for the last piece of this shared eternity. His voice was ragged and raw when he started running his mouth again.

“Now that I know I’ve made you feel every bit as good as I possibly can... Well. This part Daddy lets himself be selfish _,_ sweetheart.” Steve fucked his hips in extra hard on the last bit, seemingly just to watch Bucky shout. “This part I wanna take a little different each time I do this. Gotta decide how I want you when I’m coming.”

Bucky swallowed in his dry throat and keened, keeping his eyes open even though he just wanted to close them, wanted to float away on the full and incandescent feelings his final orgasm left behind. This _feeling…_ this was new. Bucky could not ever remember feeling like this, not once before.

“What,” he started, licking his chapped lips, “what are you gonna do this time, Daddy?”

Steve gave him a look like he hadn’t expected Bucky to ask, taken aback maybe by the weak and submissive tone in his voice, by the expanse of his throat bared to Steve’s gaze. Bucky wondered if his own face looked as cock-drunk as he felt.

“You got the most gorgeous eyelashes,” Steve panted out, hips unrelenting, brow furrowed deeply and dangerously. He ground down into Bucky’s body once more before starting to pull all the way out. “Wanna see my come dripping from them. Makin' ‘em stick together.”

Whatever was left of Bucky’s sanity shot out of his body and straight through to the stratosphere. He felt elated, smiling, happy and perfect and he was telling Daddy as Daddy was pulling out, asking, _“yeah, Daddy, fuck me up,”_ even as Steve pulled out and kneeled, crawling up Bucky’s body with his powerful thighs until he was straddling his chest with a hand flying over his purpling erection.

“Close those pretty eyes, baby,” Steve commanded, grinding rocks through his throat. “Keep ‘em closed ‘til I say.”

Bucky smiled, and he obeyed.

Hot, liquid splashes soon began to rain down on his face: his eyelids, his cheeks, his nose and even his neck. He opened his mouth instinctively and stuck his tongue out, reveling in the heavy streams that landed there, salty, thick. The symphony of Daddy’s pleasured sounds played inside his ears and Bucky almost wished he could open his eyes and see Steve’s face, see how good he did to make his Daddy feel like that—but he couldn’t, of course. Daddy had said to keep his eyes shut so he could wet up Bucky’s eyelashes. Bucky kept his eyes shut.

When it was over, he didn’t know how long it had lasted; his Daddy always comes a lot. Steve was still straddling his chest but the mess on his face was starting to cool. What parts of it that had landed on his chin were now dripping down, Bucky could feel. Pooling in his collarbones. He suddenly felt indescribably sexy.

And oh, god, Daddy’s scent. _Steve’s_ scent. Bucky’s entire consciousness was immersed in cedar and pine and woodsmoke and the hefty salt of come, every little nuance to Steve’s natural scent filling his mouth and floating in through his nostrils. Consuming him.

At some point Steve shifted, and then some sort of cloth was dabbing away at the fluid around his shut eyes. Steve left the rest of it untouched.

“Open up, sweetheart,” Steve croaked. “Look at me.”

Bucky opened his eyes. The lids were sticky. Steve was there, dripping cock in hand, palm tight around a deflating knot. He had a look on his face Bucky had never seen before, but it was a good look.

“Jesus Christ, Bucky.” Steve’s voice was so damn tight and strained, like whatever he was seeing was nearly a painful sight to behold.

Bucky… well. Bucky _giggled_. A voice in his head that sounded a lot like his own told him that he should maybe be embarrassed by the sound but how could he be, here on this happy cloud? And besides, Steve must have liked it. He was smiling.

“Feeling good, sweetheart?”

Bucky nodded, smiling back, but he couldn’t help the wince that came when a sizable glob of Steve’s come fell from his cheekbone over to his shoulder. It landed cold.

“Sorry, baby,” Steve said. He had the bath towel from earlier in his hand and was now using it to wipe the rest of Bucky up. “We’ll get you cleaned up, don’t worry. We’ll take a nice hot shower together. A bath, maybe?”

Steve wiped away what he could and climbed off, discarding the towel for a moment and kneeling between Bucky’s legs again. Bucky was easy and pliable for Steve as he held his thighs open, passive, not knowing or really caring what Steve was after at the moment. Daddy would always take care of him.

“There you go, keep your legs open, baby boy. Just wanna check and make sure we didn’t wreck your pretty little body too bad.” Steve got down on his elbows between Bucky’s thighs, laying on his stomach, face inches away from Bucky’s hole. “Gotta make sure my sweetheart is okay.”

“Mm, ‘m not breakable, Daddy,” he retorted, but the protest was absent from Bucky’s voice; he was too far gone to keep pretending like it wasn’t really fucking hot whenever Steve did this. His soft dick gave an almost mournful twitch against his stomach.

Steve got to work then, spreading Bucky open with his thumbs. He didn’t look up when he answered.

“You’re whatever I say you are, sweetheart.”

Bucky’s already fuck-flushed face colored in even more when he thought of what Steve must be seeing— how red and _used_ he must look down there, wet and sloppy, slick with himself. It occurred to him that usually such a rush embarrassment would come with the urge to squirm away, to protest more, but right then Bucky felt… okay. No, _better_ than okay. He felt happy. He felt good. He had Steve— _Daddy_ , taking care of him between his legs. He had his Alpha’s scent filling his senses. He felt perfect and sweetened and oh… Bucky felt _calm_.

He smiled to himself, huge. Steve must have seen it because he started laughing.

“Someone’s looking happy right about now,” he teased, his job apparently done, crawling back up Bucky’s body to give him a kiss.

“Mm,” Bucky hummed, a lazy grin on his face. When Steve reached out to brush the hair away from Bucky’s forehead Bucky found himself closing his eyes, turning into the direction of Steve’s wrist, blindly chasing the gland he knew he would find there. “Love it when you calm me.”

Steve didn’t say anything back right away, and then it took a moment for Bucky to notice the way that Steve had gone still. He opened his eyes to find Steve’s expression looking pensive with something else on his face that was, well—not _bad_ , per se, but more like… caution.

“Bucky,” Steve said. He was making a clear attempt at keeping his voice even and light. “Babydoll, do you… Do you think I’m using my Alpha calm scent on you right now?”

Bucky felt his own brow furrow deeply. Did Steve not even realize he was doing it? For a moment Bucky had thought that Steve felt comfortable enough doing again for the first time since the Heat, just like the grip from earlier and… well, it was kind of a hard train of thought to keep. Better just to talk. Steve could keep track of his words for him.

“’Course,” he shrugged and wow, did _he_ sound tipsy. He giggled again, like he was sharing an inside joke with himself. “Mm, feel so good and fuzzy.”

And then Steve was looking down at Bucky with a sort of… awe? He cradled half of his face in one hand, carefully, suddenly treating Bucky like he was delicate even after he had just fucked him into another plane of existence. He ran his thumb over Bucky’s kiss-bitten lower lip and Bucky leaned into it, pecking the pad of the fingertip there and letting out a happy, low hum that did not resemble a sound he’d heard himself make anytime in recent memory. It was a _purr_ , he realized.

“Oh… Bucky, baby,” Steve said, smiling finally (god, he was so gorgeous when he did that), laughing in what sounded like disbelief. “I… I didn’t use any calm scent. All that fuzzy feeling is just from your brain, sweetie.” He brought their lips together in what had to be the softest, maybe even happiest kiss he’d given Bucky all day long, murmuring, “that means your body really likes it when I’m being your Daddy and you’re being my good boy.”

Bucky didn’t understand what Steve was getting at and he didn’t pretend to, but he didn’t dwell on it, not when Daddy was giving him sweet butterfly kisses all over his lips and cheeks and his sticky eyelids, too.

“Oh.”

Steve laughed again and kissed him once more, deeper this time, running his hands on every naked stretch of skin he could find. Bucky very suddenly understood, with absolute certainty, that the feeling those touches gave him was the best feeling in the entire world.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I’ll tell you about it later. But right now I want you to take a bath with me, and then I’ll make you dinner. How’s that sound?”

Bucky smiled and nodded dopily, burying his face in the scruff of Steve’s neck and nuzzling at the skin he found. He breathed in the scent, high up in this perfect place.

A bath and dinner with Daddy sounded perfect.


	8. Daddy (Part III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment in the making.

The rest of their first week together tucked away in Steve’s cabin passed the same way those first few days had: in unparalleled bliss. It felt unreal, almost. Like something out of a movie.

Despite Bucky’s worshipful love for Steve’s warm, cozy chalet, the two of them did manage to venture out every couple of days. Sometimes they went and found one of the many local hiking trails connected to the nearby state park (which, of course, meant that Bucky got to wear his luxurious new snow boots once again). Other days, they traveled into the nearest town—a small but well-stocked resort village about fifteen minutes away, catering mainly to the local ski lodges—where they visited antique stores and boutiques and ate delicious soups and sandwiches from the local delis. Steve seemed incapable of leaving without buying Bucky some sort of unnecessary present, but Bucky was _way_ past the point of complaining about being spoiled.

Back at home, he and Steve slowly worked to put up all manner of Christmas decorations. Some of them Bucky had brought, a few Steve found in various storage closets, but most others were bought in town. When Bucky mentioned in passing one morning that he should have brought his small plastic Christmas tree, Steve—like a literal _lumberjack_ , flannel and all—went outside and almost effortlessly chopped down a very real tree from his own property. Bucky gawked at the show of effort even as he fell in love with the perfect fir tree that Steve proudly dragged up the hill to him, shaking off the snow. It was about eight feet tall, _thick_ like the Alpha who felled it, and it was gorgeously full with feathery, blue-green needles. When they made a trip to the nearby hardware store afterwards to purchase strings of lights to decorate their tree’s broad branches (or ‘Bucky’s tree,’ as Steve kept calling it), Bucky saw Steve’s eyes shine bright as they wandered through an aisle stocked with packages of silvery holiday tinsel. With a nostalgic smile, Steve had told Bucky that he and his mother hadn’t been able to have Christmas trees in their little Brooklyn tenement when he was growing up, but his more well-off cousins always had captivating trees that Steve could remember being so decked out with those shimmery strands that they seemed more glitter than green.

(Steve eventually looked away to go locate the extension cords. Bucky put ten packets of tinsel in their cart.)

And so it went that the two of them took their time enjoying their magical Vermont escape. They decorated for their first Christmas together, already planning for the next year. They kissed and necked in the hot tub in between naming constellations in the night sky. They made hot cocoa with Irish cream, sipping from their comically big mugs while cuddling on the plush new couch (‘Bucky’s couch,’ if you asked Steve) in front of the television.

But—mostly—they had sex.

They had a _lot_ of sex. They fucked so often that sometimes Steve wouldn’t even have to really open Bucky up, his tender hole still stretched from the last time Steve had fucked him; he could just slide right in, sink his thick cock into all of Bucky’s wetness, filling up that well-loved space inside him.

More often than not, their sexual encounters would evolve from one of them giving the other a particular kind of _look_ , or sometimes from Bucky casually addressing a comment to _‘Daddy’_ just to watch Steve’s eyes go dark. It was thrilling for Bucky each time—witnessing the way Steve’s persona subtly and easily shifted into the role he needed to play in order to treat Bucky just the way he was asking to be treated. Those encounters were proving to be the most intensely filthy and intimate experiences of Bucky’s life, by a _long_ shot, moments that could last for hours and build tension and need before igniting into something deep, something fiery, something powerful.

Sometimes Daddy took him hard and slow and deep. Other times, Daddy absolutely _wrecked_ him. After the second night of their stay when Steve had fucked Bucky into a near out-of-body episode—“subspace,” he later called it—Steve talked to Bucky about what he had experienced, how he’d felt drifting in that headspace. Perhaps Steve was not the most experienced _dominant_ (Bucky figured that was the right word), but Steve was a natural and—more importantly—Steve had educated himself on how to spot subspace and take care of a partner experiencing it. Steve talked for a while that next morning and answered Bucky's questions. Then, he asked Bucky if he wanted to experience that feeling again, and Bucky responded with an emphatic _yes_.

Just that easily, another new and thrilling element of their sex life fell right into place.

Steve made sure not to send him there every time they fucked; even as much as Bucky loved to drift and feel golden, doing so that often would have been overwhelming. It usually took several hours for him to come out of it completely, and for as much as the two of them loved staying in bed forever, they usually had at least one or two other things they wanted to do with their vacation days. But when they had the time (or made the time), and Steve _did_ decide to send Bucky into that effervescent place deep inside his own mind?

It wouldn’t always start the same. Often Bucky wouldn’t know what Steve’s plans were, if he had plans at all, if he was just going to carry them together in whichever direction felt right in the moment. Together they learned that Bucky didn’t always have to feel roughed up by Steve to get there—but he _did_ have to feel dominated. Bucky had to feel like Steve was in command of his every limb, his every muscle. He had to know on a cellular level that _Daddy was in charge_ , and that Bucky was simply at his mercy.

He had to feel _owned_.

And that… that was where Steve was indeed a natural. It seemed like he was born already knowing a hundred different ways to possess Bucky. He could do it through a show of strength, through thrumming pulses of power, through the enforcement of Daddy’s rules. He might use his grip on the back of Bucky’s neck to tilt him over the precipice. Sometimes, he could even do it through his _scent_.

But by far, the most effective way that Steve could show Bucky just how much he owned him was simply through words.

 _“Such a sweet little prick we have here,”_ Steve might coo through deliberate, demanding strokes. _“And it’s all mine, isn’t it? Got this fat cock inside you and this wet dick in my hand, and both of them belong to me. Don’t they, sugar? Go on,_ say it. _Tell me whose pink little dick is in Daddy’s hand.”_

 _“You got no idea how much I love this pretty hole, baby doll,”_ he might rumble against Bucky’s perineum, punctuating his speech with claiming licks, gentle nips at his rim. _“This hole only gets wet for_ Daddy _. But you know that, I know you do. You know who makes this sweet cunt drip. You know exactly who makes you mess up Daddy’s sheets.”_

And then, _“You can go, baby. I’ve got you. You don’t need to worry about it or think about it, jus’ let it happen. You know Daddy is gonna take care of what’s his while you’re up there, gonna use what’s his. Gonna love on what’s his. Go on, sweetheart.”_

And then Bucky would feel high up, suddenly. Steve would be there, an omnipotent anchor keeping him tethered to solid ground, but Bucky would still feel like he was swimming in clouds. He could fly so high when Daddy wanted him to, high enough that Bucky could almost mistake the curvature of Steve’s muscles for the curvature of the earth, could see the line of all that golden skin as though it were the horizon itself, a boundary where sunshine and moonlight collide with sweat. With life.

Daddy was all that he needed when he was snug in that headspace. Daddy would keep him safe.

Steve was always committed to letting Bucky drift for as long as he could in the aftermath, once Bucky could come no more and Steve had sweetly used his soft body to achieve his own final release. He would make sure Bucky felt contentedly wrapped up in blankets, or sometimes just weighted down by Steve’s comforting bulk. He always kept multiple points of skin contact between their two bodies even as he eventually moved to situate himself between Bucky’s legs, every time, dutifully examining the havoc he’d wrought on Bucky’s sopping wet hole and _god_ … that was always an erotic experience in its own right. Steve might play and toy with him down there for a while, praising Bucky for _“taking Daddy’s big cock so well, my perfect boy,”_ but for the most part it was a simple routine; a gentle finger, a quick kiss.

After Steve had thoroughly checked Bucky to his own satisfaction, he would set out to clean Bucky up. Usually he’d slip away to quickly grab a warm, wet cloth, lovingly wiping away the remains of their passion. Sometimes Steve would lick his own release out of him. On a few rare but very special occasions—perhaps when he was feeling especially possessive—Steve plugged Bucky up with the very same toy that Bucky had surprised Steve with on the night of the Christmas Gala, the toy he had secretly packed and that Steve had discovered (with delight) by accident in Bucky’s toiletry kit. Steve slipped the plug inside Bucky to keep him full of Steve’s come, talking to him, telling him why, _“Don’t want to waste a drop of what your Daddy gave you. Isn’t that right, love?”_ A hot bath or shower (if Bucky could stand up straight) would always follow the initial cleanup so Steve could run his hands over Bucky’s loose muscles, encouraging his blood to circulate with his firm touch, helping Bucky’s body and mind wake up and return to the real world slowly—once Bucky felt ready.

It was incredible. For the first time Bucky felt like they were truly living in the present, thoughts not caught up on what could happen or what should happen between. Their upcoming January appointment with Dr. Welsh was far and away from their minds; it was just another fact of life, something else that would be waiting for them to tackle later when they inevitably would have to come down from up on their shared cloud in wintry paradise. But Bucky wasn’t afraid of the future—not when he had so much in the right now to live and experience with Steve.

Steve wasn’t ‘Daddy’ every time they fucked; at least, not by name. Sometimes sex would just be quick, spontaneous fucking in the kitchen (“wanna bend over for me?”), blowjobs in the shower (“Stevie, baby, the mouth on you…”), unplanned but needy moments arising out of sleepy sighs in bed or laughter on a lazy afternoon (“you’re fuckin’ insatiable, you animal” and “shut it, Buck, you know you love it”). Sometimes it would be Bucky’s eyes opening in the morning to feel Steve slowly rousing behind him, cock already hard and pressed against Bucky’s backside, and Steve would press drowsy kisses into Bucky’s neck while pressing gentle fingers into his body and then make slow, quiet love to him just like that: deep, easy, Steve’s hard chest plastered against Bucky’s spine. Those times were just like the kind of perfectly amazing sex they’d already been having, the same sort of intimate and rocking moments they had shared even before discovering what ‘Daddy’ could do for them.

By that same token, Steve being Bucky’s Daddy didn’t always mean having sex. It wasn’t just about creating scenes together; as their new dynamic grew and developed, the reach of it expanded outside of the bedroom. In a very real sense, Steve being Bucky’s Daddy had always been about more than just fucking. It had been about that special undercurrent of energy that already existed in their relationship, something Bucky spotted and gave a name to before Steve did, and that same energy was the reason Bucky had chosen to try out the ‘Daddy’ dynamic in the first place. But even though the sentiment behind this new part of their relationship wasn’t exactly… well, _new_ , there was still something undeniably special about getting to use those novel titles. It was special for Bucky to call Steve ‘Daddy,’ to be his ‘sweet boy’ in return. Having a Daddy just made all of Steve’s doting and the sultry, tender attention feel… different.

The reality, of course, was that it wasn’t just one or the other; Steve was his Daddy, and his Daddy was Steve. The truth of that became more and more real with every snowy night that passed with their bodies pressed together, with every bright morning that found Bucky waking up to his Alpha’s strong scent. As it happened, those nights and mornings did pass—quickly, even as they felt slow and long and warm at the same time.

For Christmas Eve dinner, Steve reserved a table for them at the nicest restaurant in town. It was one of those low-lit, intimate places with several rooms—each one sectioned off from the others—and while the rest of the restaurant was busy and bustling with the holiday crowd, the room that their table was in was empty of any other guests. Bucky shot Steve a wry, knowing smile as they were seated to communicate what he knew to be true: Steve had paid to reserve each and every one of those tables, for their privacy. When Steve caught the look and returned it with a peachy, winter-chapped blush that peeked out above his rugged beard, Bucky grabbed his hand from across the table and squeezed it with a coquettish wink and low, _“thank you, Daddy,”_ and they might have been almost embarrassed by the wave of scent coming off of Steve in the next moment if the winter-themed room didn’t already smell like pinecones.

The two flirted easily and exchanged grins as Bucky pretended to look at the menu. When the waiter came around, Steve leaned back in his chair and ordered for them both with an air of easy confidence that was almost unfairly arousing, first from the wine list, then a four-course feast from the dinner menu. He made a little show of not even asking Bucky what he wanted because he already _knew_ what Bucky’s selection would be, knew that he would go for the prime rib because he wouldn’t like the ginger sauce on the scallops, knew that he wouldn't be able to pass up on the crème brûlée.

Bucky could already feel his own eyes growing dark before their appetizers even came out. Steve had always been one for doting—quietly early on, but lately almost a little bit ostentatious—and Bucky, for his part, had become increasingly receptive to it. Still, the evening was beginning to almost feel like a... role play. Like Steve was truly a _sugar daddy_. Bucky could almost taste the imaginings that he was simply there for conversation, for arm candy. Paid company. Something pretty to look at while this handsome, commanding, silently wealthy man enjoyed his company over an expensive meal. The mere thoughts tinged the top of Bucky’s cheeks crimson.

All throughout dinner, Bucky allowed himself to lean into the fantasy. He let Steve watch from across the table to find Bucky looking at him through lowered lashes, lips parted, fingers playing slowly and idly with the stem of his wine glass (which was filled with what tasted like the most expensive red wine Bucky’s tongue ever had the pleasure of meeting). The look that Steve returned was equally as stirring: gaze heated, the corner of his mouth just barely turned upward. When they were done, Steve had the waiter box up a couple of extra desserts from the menu—“something sweet for a Christmas brunch”—before paying without so much as glancing at the bill.

Steve drove them back to the cabin afterwards, where they changed into warm pajamas before curling up together on the couch. They had _A Christmas Carol_ on the TV, the classic 1935 adaptation. Bucky wasn’t paying much attention. He was too focused on all the parts he wanted to touch on that warm, hard body cuddling him from behind, arms fitted around Bucky’s waist in a casually possessive hold on the couch. Steve, however, appeared to be at least a little involved in watching the film, so Bucky made it all the way until after the Ghost of Christmas Past was done before he quit trying to stave off his own wandering hand.

When Bucky’s palm reached back and rubbed at the soft bulge between Steve’s legs over his pajama pants, Steve’s frame tightened up for a moment—breath audible as it caught in his throat next to Bucky’s ear—but he quickly relaxed and spread his legs a little bit more.

Slowly and with sultry confidence, Bucky sat up and sank down to his knees on the soft rug between Steve’s legs. A soft thrill in his blood, he made a point to maintain sex-charged eye contact as he ran his hands upward along the solid muscle of Steve’s thick thighs, soaking up the friction of the flannel pajamas beneath his palms. The burning in Steve’s gaze made Bucky think of the way it had felt to walk out of that restaurant earlier with Steve’s body hovering close, towering, a sure hand sitting _just right_ on the small of Bucky’s back with an unmistakable hint of ownership.

He liked this game just as much as Bucky did.

“Hey there, sweet thing,” Steve drawled. He reached down and traced the bow of Bucky’s mouth lightly with his fingers, watching his own movements like he was considering something. “Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”

Bucky gave his best attempt at a shy smile and nodded. “I did,” he breathed against Steve’s fingers. “Thank you, Daddy.”

Steve groaned. Suddenly the fingertips tracing Bucky’s lips pushed themselves inside, middle and index finger, surprising Bucky in an exhilarating way and playing with the inside of Bucky’s cheek like it was flesh Steve owned himself.

“So sweet,” he murmured.

Steve used the hand that wasn’t toying with Bucky’s tongue to tug the elastic of his pajamas down (nothing underneath, apparently), tucking it below his own balls and his hardening cock without even bothering to remove the rest of it.

“ _So_ sweet,” he repeated. “You wanna be a good boy and suck Daddy’s cock?”

And yes, as it happened. Bucky _did_ want to be a good boy.

***

The Christmas morning sun rose to find Steve slipping out of bed early, placing featherlight kisses over Bucky’s eyelids with a soft order to, _‘sleep a little longer sweetheart, gonna make us some breakfast.’_ Bucky gave a bleary smile and a nod before sliding back into sleep, burrowing into the warm spot where Steve had just slept, inhaling his Alpha’s scent from the sheets.

Bucky finally stirred again an hour later. Donning his bathrobe and a pair of fuzzy socks against the slight chill of the cabin air, he let himself be carried down the stairs towards the smell of bacon and something sweet. He found Steve in the kitchen looking delectably broad and shirtless, spatula in hand, tending to what seemed to be French toast. Bucky’s mouth watered.

Steve turned with a warm grin at the sound of Bucky’s socked feet on the bottom step.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” Steve said, putting down the spatula and stepping away from the stove. “Merry Christmas.”

Bucky smiled and walked over, eagerly accepting the invite of Steve’s welcoming, open arms and burying his face in Steve’s bare chest.

“Merry Christmas, Daddy.”

Brunch was delicious, of course. Steve excitedly corralled Bucky to the couch afterwards—a toasty and well-tended fire crackling in the living room hearth—and handed him his warm glass of rum and eggnog before starting to pull from the daunting pile of wrapped presents beneath the Christmas tree.

Bucky had set out all of his gifts for Steve as soon as they’d finished decorating the tree. Steve had put a multitude of carefully-wrapped parcels and boxes out at the same time… but then had also kept adding to the collection over the next week, one by one. It seemed like there were new additions every time Bucky walked through the living room, although the sheer scale of Steve’s spoiling came as absolutely no surprise to Bucky. There was no universe where Steve was ever going to _not_ go overboard when it came to Bucky and gifts.

‘Overboard’ began to feel like an understatement as Bucky as Steve began handing him box after box. Bucky dropped an affected _“you shouldn’t have”_ upon opening the first ridiculously expensive present (a gorgeous designer cashmere scarf, the exact blue-gray of Bucky’s eyes), but after that he didn’t bother with futile protest. He allowed himself to relax, to appreciate the thought and careful indulgence behind each gift, to let his genuine gratitude shine through. Seeing the pleased, eager reactions on Steve’s face each time Bucky opened something truly mouth-watering and luxurious felt a little like a gift in itself.

Between having pretty box after pretty box shoved into his lap, he tried to squeeze in handing his own gifts to Steve. Bucky had gotten him a few smaller things, to start. There was a nice contractor-grade toolbelt for all of Steve’s many apartment renovation tasks, since Bucky had noticed his current belt seemed to be a worn-out version of something that once belonged on the Cap uniform (although he _really_ wasn’t complaining about the way that ratty thing hung low on Steve’s narrow hips). A prettily framed photo of them dressed to the nines and standing together, something candid that Nat had snapped at the Christmas Gala earlier that month and sent to Bucky. A new leather-bound sketchbook, which Steve seemed quite touched to receive.

But the _real_ gift was in the small box that Bucky saved for last. He’d wrapped this one with especially meticulous attention, a soft blue tissue paper with a neat silver ribbon. Steve’s face showed his curiosity when Bucky placed the little package in his palm.

He found that he felt nervous as he watched Steve unwrap it. He was sweetly careful with the paper, acting as though it were a part of the gift itself. He opened the box and pulled out a fine silver chain. Steve’s expression turned odd, almost unreadable as he regarded the object hanging from it as a pendant.

It was a thin golden ring, feminine, old and worn with time while also clearly refurbished.

“Buck,” he whispered, voice barely audible. Bucky’s heart skipped a beat.

Steve examined the ring for a long moment. His expression was guarded, like he was wary of whatever thoughts were rolling through his own mind. Finally, he reached out slowly, touching and tilting the ring, holding the thing reverently and looking sideways to inspect the inside. When a wet gasp escaped Steve’s throat, Bucky knew exactly what he had spotted.

It was an engraving, almost exactly one century old.

**S + J**

“Buck,” he exhaled, “this is…”

Steve’s voice trailed off. Bucky was there to finish his thought for him.

“Yeah,” he replied softly. “It’s, um. It’s your ma’s wedding band.”

All of the nervousness Bucky had been feeling melted away as he watched the emotion play across Steve’s face. It felt like a privilege to watch, and it _was_ —getting to be the only person to witness Steve holding a piece of a past he’d thought to be lost forever.

“How…”

“I remembered what you said before,” Bucky answered, already knowing what Steve was going to ask. “About how… how after your father died, your ma ended up selling her ring. To pay for medicine.”

It had been a story—just a passing anecdote, really—that Steve had mentioned almost two months prior: Sarah Rogers, selling the only thing that was left of her bondmate Joseph, just to be able to afford her only child’s health and continued life. Steve had not made it sound like something particularly tragic; it was just a fact, just something that had to happen because of how often he would fall ill before the serum gave him a new body. Still, something about the story had stuck resolutely inside Bucky’s brain.

“I knew it was a long shot,” Bucky continued, “trying to track down something sold to a pawn shop ninety years ago. I didn’t even know where to start, didn’t know where she would have sold it in the first place, or how to go forward from there even if I did. But I… I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Then one day in the lab I was kind of thinking out loud to Tony and, well. I definitely had a lot of help.”

Bucky grinned inwardly, thinking about how eager his boss and their honest-to-goodness _friend_ had been to assist him in a seemingly impossible task. Something in Steve’s watery eyes flashed, a quick glimpse of what Bucky knew to be appreciation for the man who was also one of Steve’s earliest roots to the twenty-first century.

“I told Tony what I knew, which part of Brooklyn you grew up in, and… um, yeah. It’s amazing what you can do when you’ve got as many connections and resources as Tony does. He said we got lucky that it never got melted down for gold, that it didn’t change hands too many times. Apparently every transaction actually got recorded on paper by the businesses that sold it. Kinda crazy, actually.”

Silent tears had finally begun to escape Steve’s eyes as he gently put the necklace back in the box, replacing the lid, carefully setting it aside. He released an enormous exhale as he gathered Bucky up in his arms and squeezed him _tight_ , hugging with his entire body, maybe even tighter than he and his gentle giant nature had ever allowed himself to embrace Bucky.

“Thank you, baby. I can’t… this is the best gift anyone has ever given me.”

The rest of their day passed with an… evolving sort of energy. Soft, warm—but uniquely charged. Bucky could tell that Steve felt emotionally raw for a while after they finished exchanging gifts, but it was the kind of rawness that came with vulnerable smiles, that could be freeing, like the cracked-open feeling Bucky always got in his chest after having a good cry at a movie.

Christmas hours always melted by slowly, and their first Christmas together was no different. Steve’s vulnerable smiles turned into fond grins as the morning fell into afternoon, and comforting holds became tender touches—sometimes a little heated, sometimes even with a hint of possessiveness. Bucky felt like Steve was being even more tactile than he usually was; he always seemed to have at least one hand on Bucky’s body, even when they weren’t cuddled up on the couch catnapping or watching movies. And Bucky gave as good as he got, never _not_ eager to feel Steve’s warmth beneath his fingers.

They fiddled with the stereo system when the sun began to dip low, and they listened to Bucky’s cheesy holiday playlists as they cooked Christmas dinner together in the kitchen. Bucky whipped up a couple of his favorite sides (his dad’s candied yams recipe, his mom’s green bean casserole) while Steve busied himself with the main course. It took some convincing, but after the honey-glazed ham was set and baking in the oven, Bucky did manage to pull one uncharacteristically shy Alpha into dancing with him in the living room for a few slow, jazzy songs.

“See?” Bucky teased, swaying in the time of Steve’s increasingly confident leading steps. He brought their joined hands up to his mouth to kiss the knuckles of Steve’s big hand. “Not so bad after all. I knew you’d be a natural.”

Steve chuckled deep in his chest and dipped down for a kiss, not without heat despite being closed-lipped, and he tugged Bucky closer into his broad body.

“Yeah, Buck. Everything feels natural when I do it with you.”

Bucky had to stop both himself and Steve from eating so much at dinner that they wouldn’t have a single bit of room for the pecan pie they’d baked together. Stuffed, they spent a long time digesting on the couch with a shared glass of rich, chocolate port wine (one of Steve’s many gifts to him, and one that Bucky knew came at two hundred dollars a bottle). They tangled their limbs together and laid on their sides, back-to-front, swimming in the simple and soft pleasures of each other’s body heat and each other’s scents and the glow of the fireplace.

He couldn’t put a finger on when exactly the energy between them made that final shift from warm to sensual, but Bucky thought it was probably sometime around when Steve’s easy kissing and breathing over the glands on Bucky’s neck became just a little bit wet, produced a little bit of teeth. Bucky responded with a slow roll of the line of his body back into Steve’s, encouraging, trying to draw out little groans and quiet growls from Steve as they both began to stir in their pants.

“Something you want, sweetheart?”

“Mm… _Daddy_ …”

Steve breathed a low noise against the nape of Bucky’s neck and ran a hand down his side, feeling, slipping under the wool of Bucky’s sweater to sweep fingertips across the skin at his waist.

“Right here, Buck, but you gotta tell me what it is.” Steve nibbled at Bucky’s earlobe, and Bucky could feel himself starting to grow wet already. “Daddy can’t give you what you need if he doesn’t know.”

“Yes you can. You— _oh_ —you always know.”

The comment earned Bucky a punched-out sound from deep in Steve’s ribcage, and Steve’s hands suddenly grew greedier at every point of contact they had with Bucky’s body. Every one of Bucky’s nerve endings lit up at the noise, at the feeling. He could sense an increasingly charred edge to Steve’s scent that reminded Bucky of something he hadn’t smelled from Steve in a long, long while. He didn’t allow his brain to linger on the notion.

“You’re right,” Steve rasped. “But I still wanna hear you ask for it.”

And maybe there really was something to that request, Bucky thought. Sometimes Bucky could feel so chaotic inside that he really did need Daddy to be the one to read him, to figure out what Bucky wanted and decide for Bucky and _give_ it to Bucky.

But right then? Bucky was overcome with absolute certainty about what he wanted.

“Want you to fuck me,” he rasped, “fill me up. Want your come inside me.”

Steve’s chest thundered out with his approval.

“That so, Buck?”

Steve wrapped him up tight and secure with one strong arm and moved to stand, to take them up the stairs and into the bedroom where Bucky knew he would deliver on all the things he had asked Steve for—but Bucky stilled him with a requesting hand over his forearm.

“No,” Bucky said, hearing his own voice needy and a little shaky. “Here.”

It wasn’t like they hadn’t fooled around on the new couch before; blowjobs, hand jobs, Steve eating Bucky out or fingering a wet orgasm out of him, before eventually carrying him up to their bed. They had even fucked against it a few times, standing up, Bucky bracing his chest over the back of the couch while Steve rammed his cock into him over and over and over until they had to wipe Bucky’s spend off the upholstery with a wet rag and plug his hole up to keep him from _dripping onto Daddy’s nice rug_. But, most days, Steve preferred to be able to spread Bucky out across their big mattress. Steve liked having room to take him apart.

So Steve had yet to actually fuck Bucky into the couch—into the _nesting_ couch that Bucky’s Alpha had bought, just for him. He had yet to stick that big, heavy cock inside Bucky and make love to him in the same spot to which they would one day soon return so that Bucky could pile it high with blankets and pillows that smelled like Steve and unlaundered sheets from their shared home. He’d surround himself with soft things laden with the scent of fiery cedar and bergamot and spring pine to quell those inevitable hormonal urges that would fill his body, easing the preheat symptoms that Bucky already knew would be stronger than any he’d experienced before. This couch was the place where Bucky wanted his rutting Alpha to _bite_ him one day, to sink his teeth into his neck, to claim Bucky as Steve’s for life.

Again, Bucky tried to shove the thoughts away. All of that… that was for later. But right _now_ Bucky wanted a taste, wanted to smear all that specially-designed upholstery with come and slick and sweat—and he wanted Daddy to be the one to do that with him.

“Right here, Daddy,” he repeated. “Here. I want you to.”

Bucky could feel Steve’s breath catching before it stuttered out in a low groan, exhaling heavy and hot against the back of Bucky’s neck with the warm air dragged from Steve’s lungs by the undercurrent in Bucky’s request and the hidden weight behind it. Then Steve relaxed back into the couch, loosening his hold on Bucky’s waist by just a fraction.

“You want me to fuck you on your couch, Bucky?” Steve brought his free hand up to trace Bucky’s lips with his index finger, groaning when Bucky instinctually darted his tongue out to lick at it. “You want me to make us both come until you’re messy all over? Yeah? ‘Til you’re stuffed full and dripping Daddy’s come?”

Bucky whined and ground his ass down into Steve’s lap. He sucked the tip of Steve’s finger into his mouth, rolling his tongue over it, before Steve tugged it free with a lewd _pop_.

“Yes, Daddy. Please. I want it.”

Steve groaned again, the vibrations shaking down Bucky’s own spine.

“Of course,” Steve said. “Anything you want, beautiful.”

Steve set Bucky down onto the cushion next to him and started undressing them both. He laid their clothes over the back of the couch, out of the way, kissing and touching and nipping at Bucky’s skin as it was exposed. Soon they were both naked. Steve maneuvered Bucky onto his back and arranged Bucky’s legs so that they were slung over Steve’s shoulders and he leaned forward, bending Bucky in half to capture Bucky’s mouth in a heated kiss, tongue and lips and teeth.

“You ready for my fingers?” Steve asked, two already circling the place where Bucky had grown wet and soft with his own arousal.

“Yeah, _yeah_ Daddy, please—open me for your cock.”

Steve hummed and licked the tender skin of Bucky’s neck, hot over his scent gland, before sitting up on his haunches to look down at his hand teasing at Bucky’s entrance.

“Aw, sugar,” he crooned, “you know your Daddy will give you _anything_ when you’re asking for it that sweet.”

Bucky let out a splintered moan and flung his head back against the cushions, eyes slamming shut in bliss when Steve began to slowly push his fingers inside. He could feel his hole trying hard to swallow them up more quickly, greedily, feeling like he was starving for it. Steve thankfully did not make him wait for more. He began thrusting them in and out, scissoring and spreading, fingertips curling upwards on every other pass over Bucky’s sweet spot. When Bucky finally cracked his eyes open, he found Steve staring down at where he was working Bucky over, expression hot, eyelids heavy.

“Oh sweetheart, _fuck_ ,” Steve swore, deeming Bucky ready enough to add a third finger, thank _god_. “Did you know this is one of my very favorite parts of getting inside you? Seeing how tiny and tight this wet cunt is before I get you open, watching you eat up my fingers...”

And already, Bucky could feel himself starting to slip into that saccharine headspace. He wasn’t quite there—not yet—but that familiar, syrupy feeling began to flood his nerve endings at the knowledge of where this night was headed. It was Steve’s _words_ , it was Steve’s thick scent. It was the slick, lewd noises coming from between his own spread legs. It was that deep rumble emanating from Steve’s chest even beneath his speech, a noise so low that it was barely audible, but Bucky heard it. Bucky never missed it. It was a quiet and primal sound, and Bucky was attuned to it always.

Steve worked him open as thoroughly as he always did, if not maybe a little quicker than usual. By the time he was adding a fourth finger—mouth kissing up and down the inside of Bucky’s thigh, beard leaving a subtle scratch in its trail—Bucky was so ready and hungry for Steve to fuck him that he was sure his body must have been crushing Steve’s bones with how much he was clamping down.

“I’m ready, Daddy,” Bucky whined. He ground his hips down with a whine, getting Steve’s fingers just that little bit deeper, trying hard to show Steve his desperation. “Please? I’m ready.”

Steve suddenly thrust his fingers in extra hard, nailing Bucky’s prostate, making him _howl_. He grinned and tilted his head to nip lightly at the delicate skin just inside of Bucky’s knee.

“Oh, but Buck… Gettin’ those sounds outta you? I might just keep doing this all night.”

It may have been only a tease of a threat, but it was real and familiar enough to make Bucky wail a little bit inside his own mind, _‘oh, god no—_ please _no!’_ because he knew that Steve wasn’t beyond drawing this out for a tortuous amount of time. He knew that Steve absolutely _did_ have it in him to cage a helpless Bucky inside his current spot and finger one, two explosive orgasms out of him—eating out a third, probably—before finally deigning to stick his cock inside him. Steve must have seen the panic on Bucky’s face, because he let out a roguish chuckle, one that Bucky found to be hot and absolutely _infuriating_. He squeezed Bucky’s hip comfortingly.

“Don’t you worry, my sweet boy,” Steve drawled. “Your Daddy wouldn’t dream of keeping you wanting.”

Bucky’s sigh of relief was almost a hiccup when he felt Steve finally withdraw his fingers, lining himself up in their place, and then he wasn’t left empty for more than a second before Steve’s cock was pressing into him. The push was sweet and hard; wet. Bucky heard as well as felt Steve’s heated groan when he bottomed out, keeping his own watery eyes open so he could watch Steve’s squeeze shut at the feelings overtaking them both. His ears caught a few muttered phrases about _tight_ and _hot_ and _so fuckin’ wet_.

Fully seated, Steve shuddered and let out a long breath. He leaned his hulking body down, moving Bucky’s legs from his shoulders to fold them around his waist, pressing their foreheads together with a heated kiss of spit-slick lips. The change in angle had Steve sinking deeper into Bucky, cock heavy and hard, conquering. Welcome. Bucky found himself releasing a wave of new slick in a warm and sudden rush—so much of it that he knew Steve could feel it immediately, the heat and volume too obvious to miss. Bucky’s cheeks went up in flames at his own body’s response even as his dick blurted out pre-come between their stomachs. Steve pulled his kiss away, giving another one of his sweetly condescending chuckles as he felt the display of wetness.

“Oh _goodness_ , sweetheart. Does that big cock feel good in you?”

Steve—bless him—didn’t wait for Bucky to be capable of answering again before he started moving his hips. The easy slide in and slide out was everything Bucky needed; it had his eyes falling shut, his lips parting. It had his skull falling backward to leave the vulnerable expanse of his neck exposed to Steve’s hungry licking and kissing. He was slipping down, he knew, and he was slipping _fast_.

“Fuck, Daddy,” Bucky breathed, “feels—feels so good, _oh_ —don-don’t stop, please don’t stop, _please_.”

Holding his own weight up on his forearms for better leverage, Steve began to put more force behind his thrusts. Soon he was pistoning his hips into Bucky _hard—_ fast without being too fast, the weight of his heavy balls slapping hot and loud against Bucky’s ass. Bucky was helpless to do anything but shout absolute nonsense the first time Steve pulled his cock all the way free before slamming it back inside, deep.

“Oh no babydoll, you don’t gotta beg for me tonight, you don’t gotta worry.” Steve took a bit of the offered skin from Bucky’s neck between his teeth and teased it, the perfect little sting of pain, before letting go and licking over the new red spot. “You are _so_ good for me,” he said, trailing his wet tongue in a stripe up to Bucky’s ear and growling, _“you know your Daddy’s gonna take care of you.”_

Bucky’s vision went white. He felt so light-headed at Steve’s promise that he could barely squeak out a noise before Steve pulled out most of the way and changed the angle, pushing back in _so_ fucking slow and rolling his cock right up against Bucky’s prostate. The sudden targeted assault knocked that strangled sound loose from Bucky’s throat, and he jerked his hips off the couch, screaming.

 _“Fuck!_ Ohmygod, oh, _oh Daddy—”_

The reaction got a predatory smirk out of Steve, who snapped his hips out again before rolling them back in at the same angle. He repeated the motion over and over and _over_ , a bodily oscillation of waves, Steve’s thick, weighty cock pressing hard and slow into Bucky’s sweet spot and making his dick weep freely against their stomachs.

“Gonna make you come on my cock, sweet boy,” Steve whispered against his mouth. The gravel in his voice shot like a bolt of lightning to split open Bucky’s insides, and it only added to the overwhelming sensations attacking him when Steve picked up the pace.

Bucky had known already—before the clothes even came off—that his dick would be quick on the trigger tonight. Still, it might have been a record short amount of time before Bucky found himself struggling to piece together stuttered moans as he flew apart in a hundred different directions. He didn’t have to beg Steve to jerk him off to get there this time; he didn’t need it. Bucky shot off untouched as soon as Steve began using his tongue to fuck his mouth in the tempo of his moving hips. There was a wet string of spit connecting their lips when Steve pulled back and grinned, looking down at Bucky’s dick painting their skin.

“Look at _that_ ,” Steve said, eyeing Bucky’s mess with an interested rumble. He slowed his thrusts once the contractions of Bucky’s ass began to subside, and he sat up for a better look at their bodies coming together. “Jesus, baby… got your Daddy’s cock fuckin’ soaked now, didn’t you?”

Bucky’s body began to come down soon enough, but his head didn’t. His entire consciousness felt like it was a thousand miles up in the sky even once his orgasm ebbed. Steve moved away like he was about to pull out, but Bucky caught his arm.

“Don’t stop, Daddy?” he whispered, giving voice to a part of him that didn’t need to be lucid to know what he wanted. “Please?”

Steve groaned before suddenly pulling out, flipping Bucky around with such ease and speed that Bucky wasn’t sure what had happened until he found himself face down against the cushions, his hips propped up high behind him by Steve’s one-handed grip. Steve spent a few hurried seconds thumbing around Bucky’s loose hole, pushing his own slick back inside him like he just wanted to play with it, before pushing his cock back in and ripping a raw yelp straight from Bucky’s lungs.

There was a spot of drool on the couch already, but Bucky couldn’t bring himself to be embarrassed about it.

“Daddy wasn’t planning on stopping, sweetheart.” Steve sounded like he was almost panting now with the exertion of chasing his desires. He gave a few self-serving thrusts that Bucky could tell were only for himself, only to see and feel the squeeze of Bucky’s now sensitive body around his cock. “Gonna fuck you full of my come. Gonna watch it leak out, after I’m done with you.”

Bucky moaned, loud and shameless and downright indecent, rubbing his face into the couch in a weak attempt to ground his spinning mind. Steve brought his thrusting to a standstill and spared a second to trace a lazy half-circle around Bucky’s wet, stretched rim with a finger, but he apparently didn’t plan to stay in their new position for very long. He tucked the length of his cock tight inside Bucky before wrapping his arms around Bucky’s ribcage, pulling him up until Bucky’s back was pressed tight against Steve’s hard chest.

“Come on, baby,” he exhaled into Bucky’s ear. “Come sit back on Daddy’s cock.”

And then Steve was moving Bucky wherever he wanted him while he sat himself back on the couch, Bucky in his lap—facing away. Once there, Steve used one of his long, muscular legs to push Bucky’s thighs far apart so that they were sprawled across Steve’s, and Bucky whined brokenly once he realized that he would have zero leverage in this new position. Out of self-preserving instinct, Bucky tried to test it, some part of his fuck-addled brain looking for proof that he really _was_ completely at the mercy of Steve’s manhandling. He started arching his back to see if he could lean his weight forward or maybe grip the edge of the couch cushions, but Steve was quick to stop him and press a possessive forearm across Bucky’s chest, forcing him to lay back again.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Steve growled.

All that mindless struggle obediently melted from his nerves and his bones as Bucky relaxed, letting his head hang back over Steve’s shoulder. Steve’s free hand came up and took Bucky’s jaw in a grip that was fairly loose while still being firm and commanding enough to turn his head, tilting his face sideways until their wet puffs of breath met in the air. Steve’s skin was all blazing heat against Bucky’s spine.

“You sit right here, and you _let_ Daddy fuck up into you. Got it?”

Bucky moaned and nodded as much as he could in the hold. He felt some of his own spit dripping down his chin, making his cheeks pink up in embarrassment even in his fuzzy state of mind. Steve purred and released Bucky’s jaw, licking up that shameful bit of dribble.

“Mm, _there’s_ my good boy.”

And _oh_ —that praise trickled down Bucky’s spine like the hot, sticky molasses that it was. He was reminded of the thick cock that was very much still inside him when Steve moved his other hand to grip Bucky’s hipbone and began rolling his body upwards, fucking into him in slow, tortuous waves that never failed to press at Bucky’s most tender inner places. Bucky happily became a ragdoll and let himself fall into a whimpering, moaning mess, consenting to just exist _for Steve_ and be blissed out _for Steve_ and enjoy the sensation of _Steve_ and utter, complete fullness.

“There you go, that’s it,” Steve praised. “You just lay back against me. Feeling good, Buck?”

He didn’t know if Steve actually expected an answer, but Bucky nodded with a loose neck, eyes slipping shut as Steve pushed deeper and deeper inside of him in more ways than one. Bucky’s head stayed lolled off to the side with their lips just a breath away, and there he could let his lids flutter open to watch Steve’s brow furrow, to see him glisten with sweat. The intimate glands on Steve’s corded neck bled out char and lumber and loose-leaf tea, thick clouds of scent tinged with pinecones and swallowed up by Bucky’s greedy lungs while his Daddy held him and fucked him.

Steve set himself a pace, and Steve kept it. Bucky melted into the wanton nature of the position more and more each second, getting lost in the sensual sprawl of their bodies over the soft furniture. Soon his back was arching again, but not because he was trying to scramble away from sensation this time. He raised his hands over and behind his own head to hold onto the sides of Steve square jaw, anchoring himself, and _god_ , Bucky thought, _Steve’s cock felt so fucking huge._

“Oh yeah?” Steve cooed, sounding like something had amused him. “Feels big in this little body?”

The hand not barred across Bucky’s chest wandered down to his dick, but instead of wrapping his fingers around him, Steve held his hand out over Bucky’s lower belly, right above his groin. Bucky made a pathetic, curious noise when Steve began pressing down firmly in a way that reminded Bucky very much of getting a hernia check at the doctor, and then Steve was thrusting up slowly, _extra_ hard, before letting out one long and filthy groan.

“Oh, fuck, gimme your hand sweetheart, give—Jesus, baby… _goddamn_ , here, feel yourself for me.”

Steve stilled the deep rocking of his hips for a moment and collected one of Bucky’s hands, moving it and placing it over that same spot on his lower belly. He covered it with his own and pressed their hands down firmly as he started fucking up into him once more.

Bucky’s brain might have been made of liquid, but that wasn’t enough to keep him from responding with a shocked, stuttering whine, almost a bark, and a cry of, “oh my god, _Daddy_!” He could hear the way his own voice sounded wrecked and nearly panicked because fuck—with the way Bucky’s back was arching and the pressure Steve was applying through their fingertips, Bucky could actually feel the bulge of Steve’s big cock from _outside_ his body.

“You feel that, Buck? You feel your Daddy’s cock—feel it both ways? _Fuck_ , you’re gonna kill me one day.”

Then Steve dropped Bucky’s hand and roughly pushed his forearms under Bucky’s knees, pulling them further apart. With an almost gratuitous display of strength and power, Steve held Bucky’s thighs back tight until his weight was entirely off of the couch and Steve’s lap, stopping only when Bucky was bent in half, suspended in Steve’s arms with his back plastered to Steve’s sweaty chest.

“Steve—Daddy, oh _god_ yes…”

Holding that position, Steve began bouncing Bucky on his cock, moving him up and down and up again like he weighed nothing at all. He lifted Bucky almost all the way off before letting his weight fall back down, the force of gravity burying Steve’s entire shaft inside his fucked-out hole with each and every pass. Somewhere in the back of his thoughts, Bucky noted that he could feel the burgeoning girth of a knot forming—and _yes_ , he thought. Bucky _loved_ to make his Daddy come.

“Gonna make this pretty dick feel good again,” Steve rumbled out, “Make it come.” He shoved an arm further under Bucky’s knee until he could wrap his big hand around Bucky’s erection, stroking him, firm and slow. “And then I’m gonna fill you up with me. Gonna get you full, _so_ full. Maybe we’ll even feel it in your tummy right here—yeah?” Steve pulled his fist full of dick back against Bucky’s stomach again, pressing and gesturing. “Just like we could feel Daddy’s cock?”

It was, without a doubt, the absolute filthiest thing Steve had ever said to him. Bucky couldn’t have stopped himself from envisioning the fantasy of it even if he tried: being stuffed so full of Steve’s come that his stomach _swelled_ with it, his already soft belly curving outward even more for Daddy to run his hand over, whispering things into Bucky’s ear about how good he looked like that, how owned it meant Bucky was.

 _(How bred up he’d look_ —Bucky’s cock-stoned brain supplied.)

There was nothing for it after that; his orgasm came on so suddenly and so intensely that even Steve seemed surprised by it. The raw power behind it shook through him, his thighs trembling over the supports of Steve’s arms, vocal cords stripped hoarse with the volume of his own screaming. It felt like his insides were flying apart while his ass clamped down like a vice, and his dick spilled hot over Steve’s hand.

Bucky thought it must have lasted for an eon. He felt thick and sweet and gloriously sticky afterwards, inside and out, his mind just like honey. He was so deep into that headspace that he didn’t even notice Steve lifting him off of his cock until he was being gently set on his back against the softness of the couch, exhausted dick beginning to go soft.

Steve’s own cock was still hard, Bucky could see—red and angry-looking where it jutted out in front of the narrow cut of his hips. A drop of Bucky’s own slick dripped off the end of it as he stared.

“Oh, baby…” Steve husked, looking down at him with a hot, dark expression. “You got no idea what you do to me.”

Steve knelt between Bucky’s spread thighs and started jerking himself off, his knot becoming visibly fatter, the veins in his arms and neck straining the way that they always did when Steve was getting close. It took Bucky’s lagging head a moment to catch up, but once he did he went straight to pouting, letting out indiscernible whiny, unhappy noises when his tongue couldn’t make words at first.

“No, Daddy, _more_ ,” he slurred. He stuck his hand out to try and still Steve’s hand flying over his wet cock. “You said. You said you were gonna fill me up.”

Steve tossed his head back with a groan that was some mixture of pain and shock, but he slowed the movements on his cock, using his other hand to grip the base of it tight and slow himself down. Bucky licked his lips at the sight of the little bead of sweat that hung from the tip of Steve’s nose, the crystal droplet catching the fiery glow of the living room hearth.

“Jesus, sweetheart,” Steve moaned. “You want me to _keep_ fucking you? I don’t think you’ve got any more left, baby doll. Think we drained you up right.”

Steve gingerly touched Bucky’s softening cock, which might have made him hiss at the overstimulation if he weren’t so deep in that slow, heavy mind place. Daddy was probably right about one thing; while Bucky could have come once or twice more under normal circumstances, his last orgasm had been so exceptionally intense that it felt like having two at once. His dick was most likely spent.

“Don’t care,” Bucky whined. “Please, Daddy, use me—wanna make you feel good. Want you to fill me up.”

And _oh,_ was Bucky glad he was looking up at Steve’s face as he said it, because those blue eyes blackened into a shade that Bucky had never seen there before. He could see the breath catching in Steve’s chest, his towering form becoming absolutely rigid for one long second.

Then Steve was snapping his eyes shut with a deep groan and falling back down onto Bucky, kissing him with fervor and pressure and tenderness and wrapping one strong arm beneath his back, using the other to push one of Bucky’s thighs up and out, pulling Bucky wide for him. He worked his cock back inside and started fucking him again, hard and deep. It was too much all at once and Bucky wanted it all so, _so_ badly.

“Such a sweet boy,” Steve grit out against the side of Bucky’s head, one strong hand buried in Bucky’s hair. “Sweet to Daddy with your body, _so_ fucking good. You make me so happy baby— _fuck_ — _oh_ , Daddy loves you so fucking much.”

Steve seized Bucky’s mouth with his own and started kissing him, dominating lips and wild thrusts of the tongue, full of intensity and promise and a possessive kind of love that had Bucky’s eyes quickly filling up with tears—from the perfect sensation of overstimulation and the sudden burst of adoration exploding inside his chest. He couldn’t help but arch his back up off the couch, tangling his free leg around Steve’s calf and pressing his body into that unyielding frame above him, rocking into him. His mouth was caught in a silent ‘o,’ but Bucky forgot how to form sounds.

Minutes or hours passed like that. Steve eventually released his leg and pressed their chests together, kissing Bucky, biting on his collarbones and licking hot lashes across his neck while he railed into him. A funny twitch against Bucky’s stomach told him that his dick must have been coming back to life, but he couldn’t pay it any attention—not when every cell in his body cared for nothing but Steve’s impossibly hard cock moving inside him, thick and absolutely unrelenting. The feeling of his Daddy using his body to chase his own orgasm was almost more than Bucky could handle.

“Oh god Daddy, oh god, don’t stop, don’t stop, _oh_ —!”

Steve pulled up for a minute to watch the way Bucky was taking his cock, and his eyes passed over Bucky’s semi. He started pounding into him with even more zeal, faster, every move making Bucky’s dick bounce and impossibly fatten up a little more, and it was so much— _too_ much, just enough. Bucky was so far gone that all he could comprehend was the temperature of Steve’s voice when he spoke, “Fuck, sweetheart, you’re all excited again. You like the way I use your body?”

Bucky’s hiccup came out as a sob. He slammed his eyes shut against the onslaught.

“Daddy, _Steve_ ,” he cried. “I love it, I _love_ it. Please?”

“‘Please’ what, Bucky?” Steve panted down. His breath was hot against the wetness on Bucky’s cheeks. “Gotta tell me what you need.”

Internally, Bucky despaired at the notion of being made to string together real words. He couldn’t even do that with _thoughts_ right now. Steve continued to fuck his cock into him with purpose all the while, the familiar bulge of his knot slamming wetly against the hot, slick skin of Bucky’s hole with each fervent thrust. He could tell that Steve was just a hair away from his own orgasm at the same time as he felt the distinct, long line of tension in Steve’s form, that rigid body of control that meant Steve was intentionally holding himself off until he heard Bucky ask for what he needed.

What _did_ Bucky need? What was Bucky asking for?

He forced his eyes open to take in the sight above him, trying hard to find the answer in the vision of the person holding Bucky’s body open—holding his ribcage open, his lungs, his heart. He found it.

Bucky’s Daddy, Bucky’s _Alpha:_ eyes closed, jaw slack, flushed lips parted to let out breathy, blissed-out sounds. Steve Rogers, gorgeous in the letting go, and maybe Bucky didn’t have to know exactly what he needed because _Steve_ knew and if Steve knew then that meant Bucky could have it.

All he had to do was ask.

“Please,” he pleaded, croaking out the one word he knew he could cling to. “Please, Daddy, let go. Need…” Bucky licked his own lips and tasted where Steve had been. “Need your come inside me.”

Steve slowed his pace. His breathing followed, and Bucky watched him force his eyes to focus in on Bucky below. He watched the fog of chasing a singular desire clear from Steve’s expression for one long, drawn-out moment. He watched a window open.

He watched Steve, reaching through.

“Anything else, sweetheart?”

Bucky kept his eyes locked on Steve’s even when they wanted so badly to slip closed. Steve’s thrusts stilled completely when he saw that Bucky couldn’t answer at first, not with words, and the fat, hot flesh at the base of his cock came to a loyal soldier’s rest against the outside of Bucky’s ass.

Steve knew, Daddy knew—of _course_ Daddy knew. Daddy knew that Bucky wanted to be possessed by him. Daddy knew Bucky wanted his body to be taken over, his mind. Daddy knew that Bucky wanted him to occupy the same space that Bucky did, all the time, everywhere. Daddy knew that Bucky wanted him to crawl inside his skin.

_“Buck.”_

Breath whistled through Bucky’s throat on a wet exhale. He found himself tilting his chin back, leaving the sweat-slick expanse of his neck open for Steve’s view. It wasn’t a request—not yet. It was a communication.

“What’s… what’s your color, Daddy?”

And Steve—Daddy _whimpered_. His knot pulsed as he pressed it forward an inch, an almost involuntary movement of the hips, before he pulled it away completely and left only the tip of his cock inside. A panicked, keening noise was just beginning to form high in Bucky’s throat when Steve started adjusting them. He shoved his arms underneath Bucky and gripped the backs of his shoulders, caging him in, and he pushed their foreheads together. Bucky felt all of the breath go loose inside Steve’s lungs. His Alpha smiled.

“Green, sweetheart,” he whispered. He brushed their lips together, like a promise of truth. “So green.”

And that was it.

Steve held Bucky tight to him as he started up again. Bucky could see nothing but the sweat on their cheeks catching the light of the fire with their faces this close. It looked and felt like flames were licking their skin, the glowing embers stoking the heat in Bucky's core. The sight wasn’t important, not really; the glow of a stonebuilt fireplace could never be warmer than Steve kept him.

It wasn’t long before a warm splash at his navel told Bucky that his dick must have been spurting come. He hardly paid it mind. He couldn’t—not when Steve was speeding up instead of slowing down, trusting that Bucky wanted what Steve had to give him more than he wanted to ward off oversensitivity, letting himself enjoy the way Bucky’s walls clenched down around him.

In truth, Bucky knew nothing in that moment but the heat of firelight and Steve’s breaking breath. There was a push; there were two, three. On the fourth Bucky’s body opened to something Steve had not once given him outside of Heat. It was Steve—the love of Bucky’s life, and when he finally let go inside him, looking helpless and possessed and rapturous, anyone watching would have thought that the universe had finally found a way to break an unbreakable body.

_“Steve.”_

Bucky had forgotten what it was to be tied. He wasn’t sure he’d ever really known. There was pulsing, there was heat. There was a stretch and a fullness with which pain could not contend, and when Bucky opened his eyes, there it was: that look, that disbelief and unabashed reverence. Worshipfulness.

Wet lips covered Bucky’s. Another pulse of warmth flowed into him, unabated.

“I love you, Buck,” Steve echoed back. The sound was so happily broken and was, as always, just like a benediction.

Bucky couldn’t keep himself open to thought after that. He let himself be cradled, let himself be full: of love, of weight. Of _belonging_ , being given what he’d asked for. As he fell away to sleep—clean and in a bed, he would later recall—Bucky could hear his own voice.

_“Made for you, Stevie.”_


	9. Therapy (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky follow up with Dr. Welsh.

_Three Weeks Later_

The harsh January wind bit at the still-damp hair at the nape of Bucky’s neck as Steve hailed them a cab, but Bucky was warm nonetheless. It was hard to feel cold when he had a strong arm wrapped around his waist and the scent of cedar filling in his nose.

Steve opened the door for him when the yellow taxi pulled up to their curb. Bucky’s bottom had barely slid across the middle seat when Steve climbed in behind him and shut the door, pulling Bucky into him to keep their sides pressed flush together.

“Mercer and Eighth, please,” Steve said to the driver, who nodded silently before maneuvering into the Brooklyn afternoon traffic.

Bucky snuggled in and sighed blissfully. He let his head fall sideways onto Steve’s shoulder, closing his eyes with an inhale of the heady scent that clung to the fabric of Steve’s woolen scarf.

“And what do _you_ look so happy about, sweetheart?”

Bucky smiled without opening his eyes.

“Mm…” he hummed. “Just thinkin’ about all the good stuff we get to tell the doc today.”

‘Mercer and Eighth’ was Dr. Welsh’s office. It had hardly been six weeks since their first and only appointment with their sex therapist—a rather depressing appointment, at that—but Bucky felt as though it had been a lifetime. He had spent so much of December halfway floating on the cloud of his happiness with Steve, while still the rest of him had spent the month dreading today’s appointment, fearing that they wouldn’t have made enough progress with the larger parts of their sex problems—the knotting problems—by the time their first follow-up with Dr. Welsh came around.

But that fear had been quashed on Christmas Day. And Boxing Day. And the day after that, and after that… and so on. And twice yesterday.

Bucky felt more than he heard the deep chuckle in Steve’s chest below his ear. Patches of gooseflesh broke out on his skin when Steve leaned his mouth down to mumble something into Bucky’s hair.

“I see… And how much do you think she’ll wanna hear, sugar?”

Bucky felt the stirrings of a blush. Steve had a knack for getting Bucky flustered by whispering dirty-sweet-nothings into his ear while they were in public, but he’d never done it in a cab before, with such close proximity to another person.

“Hm?” Steve prodded when Bucky did not answer. “Think maybe she’ll wanna know why we’re running late today?”

And that’s how Bucky blazed straight past blushing into full-on cheeks of flame. Steve was a devil in his own right; just one little mention of their earlier activities—Bucky’s failed attempt to work from home in the morning while Steve kept busy installing the new kitchen backsplash, all of it ending in Bucky bent over the new countertops with four of Steve’s fingers inside him, pulling tears from his eyes—and suddenly Bucky was sweating in the middle of a snowy winter day.

Steve pressed dry lips into the side of his head while he waited for Bucky to work up an answer. Bucky did his level best to admonish Steve in the most hushed tone he could manage.

“Steve, c’mon, we—” But then Steve gave him a playful warning nip on his earlobe, and Bucky flushed harder, knowing he wouldn’t be allowed to continue without first correcting himself. “ _Daddy_ …”

“Mm,” Steve purred. “There it is. Okay, so maybe not _that_ story then…”

Bucky barely contained the yelp that tried to escape him when Steve brazenly pulled Bucky into his lap right there in the backseat of the cab. He shot Steve sharp daggers with his eyes, but not before acquiescing and settling snugly across Steve's thighs. At least they could talk quieter like this and still hear each other. Perhaps they didn’t have to scar the cabbie for life after all.

“Should we tell her that you sat on Daddy’s knot twice last night?” Steve continued under his breath. “That you cried for it?” He ran the cold tip of his nose in a line from Bucky’s neck up to the sensitive spot behind his ear. “…That you sat on Daddy’s _face_ in between and let his own come run over his chin?”

Bucky had to choke down the hot, mortified noise that almost bubbled out. He squirmed helplessly in Steve’s lap, unable to miss the hint of hardness in that always-there bulge. He could still feel the twinge in his ass from last night.

“’M not sure she wants to hear all of that, Daddy,” Bucky mumbled, when in truth he had no idea how this conversation would go. “Maybe we should just stick with the cliff’s notes?”

Steve gave a warm and quiet laugh.

“Alright,” he answered, feigning disappointment. He leaned in for a peck, which Bucky gave freely. “Anything you want, sweetheart.”

—

In the end, they were only ten minutes late to their one hour appointment. Dr. Welsh called them in from the waiting room with a playfully stern look, but her smile was warm as she gestured for them to enter her office and take a seat on the plush couch.

Bucky sat first, and then Steve took the spot to his left, sliding an arm between Bucky’s waist and the backrest. It was such a small action, but it exuded so much ease and confidence that Bucky was struck by the contrast between _this_ version of his boyfriend and the one that had sat in this same room just six weeks ago with hunched shoulders and a beaten, emasculated sense of self. Bucky’s heart swelled to look at Steve now.

The insightful Dr. Welsh clearly picked up on the difference in demeanor from their first session. One of her perfectly groomed eyebrows arched in the slightest as she sat down in her chair, and her head tilted to the side with something like pleasant surprise and piqued curiosity.

“Happy New Year,” she said. Bucky and Steve nodded and happily returned the greeting. “How did you two spend the holidays?”

Steve was all confident energy and broad smiles when he answered for them, and the hand on Bucky’s waist tightened in a quick, loving squeeze.

“Bucky accompanied me up to my cabin in Vermont,” he beamed, sounding every bit like he was bragging. “I had him to myself for almost three whole weeks.”

Steve turned his head to Bucky, who quickly became melty sugar under that gaze—as he always did.

“Yeah… It was amazing.”

His words were more for Steve than for Dr. Welsh, and Steve’s eyes softened at them. When he slid a finger under Bucky’s chin and tipped his face upward, Bucky could have happily been sucked into his gravity and forgotten that Dr. Welsh was in the room at all.

“ _You’re_ amazing,” Steve murmured, taking Bucky’s lips with a chaste, closed-mouth kiss.

The two of them enjoyed their impromptu private moment, but they didn’t draw it out. Bucky’s cheeks pinked up when he spotted Dr. Welsh looking on with a fond smile after Steve pulled away.

“That sounds like a lovely vacation. And what else have you been up to since we last saw each other?”

Steve and Bucky set out to catch Dr. Welsh up on their December. They didn’t dive straight into the sexual things—as tempting as it was—but instead started with telling her about the ongoing renovations at home and the big project Bucky had finished at work. The doctor smiled when they told her more about their Vermont getaway, and maybe Bucky gushed about Steve’s cabin for longer than was strictly necessary, but neither she nor Steve seemed to mind.

Still, Bucky was mindful that their tardiness would mean a shorter session. He was just starting to make a concerted effort to wind down the chit-chat so they could get to the _exciting_ parts when Steve suddenly interrupted him.

“I knotted Bucky,” Steve blurted—blushing, but seemingly only from the unplanned nature of the small outburst. “I’ve… I’ve been knotting Bucky. For a few weeks now.”

Bucky’s heart soared to hear the unmistakable pride in Steve’s voice. Across from them, Dr. Welsh’s face showed her surprise, but her expression—while positive—didn’t change all that much.

“That’s very encouraging to hear,” she said. “Thank you for telling me.” Bucky was slightly taken aback by her reserved level of enthusiasm. It wasn’t _bad_ , per se, but… “Can you walk me through how you arrived at that point together?”

If he was being honest, Bucky wasn’t totally sure what kind of response he’d _thought_ they would get when they delivered the good news. Maybe… congratulations? Excitement? He could tell Steve was feeling the same sort of subtle let-down from the small deepening of his brow and the way his shoulders slumped in the slightest. Bucky decided to field the doctor’s question for them both and give Steve a moment to recover. Perhaps she just hadn’t understood what it was Steve had said.

“Things were going really well after our last appointment here,” Bucky began. “We did what you said and didn’t focus on the whole… knotting thing. I don’t think either of us felt like there was any pressure. Sex was just… _fun_.”

He turned to Steve with a sheepish smile to try and lighten the mood, and maybe Steve was replaying the teasing conversation they shared in the cab, or maybe he was just focusing in on Bucky’s positive energy, but either way—it worked. Steve smiled back.

“And then we went to Vermont,” Bucky continued, “and we… tried some new things.”

The demure smile Dr. Welsh gave them had a knowing tint to it. She _was_ a sex therapist, after all.

“What kinds of new things?” she asked.

And then every muscle in Bucky’s face suddenly betrayed him, morphing into some combination of a dorky grin and shy, averted eyes. He felt nervous, excited; bashful beneath his joy.

“We, um…”

But Bucky didn’t have to try and push the words out around his nerves, because a glowing Steve jumped in and took up the reins for him.

“I get to be Bucky’s Daddy now.”

Before they arrived, Bucky had expected the room to feel a little bit awkward once they admitted to the biggest change in their newly reborn sex life—but it didn’t. All of his nervousness was remade into pride by the near boastfulness in Steve’s tone—and why shouldn’t Bucky feel that way? They trusted Dr. Welsh, and besides; she wouldn’t make fun of them for the things they got off on, so long as they were in it with each other.

Bucky grinned and sat up straighter next to Steve. If Dr. Welsh had been reserving her interest earlier, every little bit of it came out in her expression now. Her eyebrows raised well above the stylish rims of her glasses, and she looked between them both briefly—without judgement, just as Bucky had expected.

“I see,” Dr. Welsh said with a smirk, looking down and writing a swift but surprisingly long note on her pad. She finished and raised her eyes again, looking between the two of them. “And Bucky?” she asked, directing her question at Steve. “Who is Bucky to _Daddy?_ ”

Steve pressed a kiss to the top of Bucky’s head.

“Bucky is my sweet boy.”

Oh—but Bucky _did_ have to blush at that.

“And this was something new to you both?” Dr. Welsh asked. “The Daddy-Boy dynamic, I mean.”

The pair of them nodded. Bucky was briefly jolted by the phrasing; he had not thought of what he and Steve did together in quite so… clinical terms. He found himself wondering how many of Dr. Welsh’s other clients had Daddies of their own.

“Whose idea was it to experiment with this?”

The edge of Steve’s mouth crooked up. He brought his free hand to cover Bucky’s on his thigh, dwarfing it, giving it a squeeze.

“All his,” Steve said. The love in Steve’s tone was just as evident as the teasing. “He’s the smart one between the two of us. Always has been.”

Dr. Welsh scribbled a note on her pad before looking up at Bucky.

“And was this something you had wanted for a while? Or was this something new?”

Bucky felt his own eyes widen minutely; he had not expected to be put in the spotlight quite this way, especially not with a question that hadn’t really even come up between him and Steve before. But it wasn’t like he had anything to hide, and Steve was doing a lot to help with the comforting way he kept smoothing his thumb back and forth along Bucky’s waist. He could be honest.

“A little bit of both? I mean, I definitely, you know… _knew_ about that kind of stuff. I’d read some of it in the trashy romance books I used to read on the subway, and I’d, um…” He ducked his head with an awkward chuckle, not looking at anyone else in the room as finished his thought. “And I’d seen it in porn.”

The hand on his waist stopped its soothing ministrations and tightened with what felt like an involuntary reaction, and the briefest whiff of smoky pine drifted into Bucky’s nostrils. _Oh,_ he thought, grinning inwardly to himself. Steve was picturing Bucky watching porn. He wondered if he should sneak onto Steve’s StarkPad one day and log into his own RedTube account, leaving a tab up with Bucky’s favorites list for Daddy to find. He made a mental note to revisit the idea when he _wasn’t_ sitting in a therapy session.

“I guess I already liked the idea?” he went on. “But I never had anyone I trusted enough to try it with—no one I really even wanted to try it with. Until Steve.”

His smile widened as he said the last part, and he gave Steve’s knee a meaningful squeeze. Steve tugged the lines of their bodies closer together.

“How did you approach Steve with it?”

Bucky couldn’t hold in the barking sound of a giggle.

“I kind of just… went for it?” he laughed. “Called him ‘Daddy’ in the middle of making out.”

Steve made a noise that was half-chuckle, half-sigh. Bucky could tell he was also fondly recalling the events of that same evening, the first day they arrived at Steve’s cabin.

“And did Steve react the way you thought he would?”

Bucky turned his head to glance up at Steve, and he practically shivered at the expression on his face, a teasing look that spoke, _‘Yeah, sweetheart—did I?’_

“Even better, actually,” Bucky answered, looking back at Dr. Welsh. “I mean, I wouldn’t have tried if I didn’t think he might be at least a little into it… but I definitely didn’t think he’d be _that_ into it. Or even myself, if I’m being honest. I think it took us both by surprise just how much we ended up liking it.”

A soft, rich humming sound came from Steve’s throat as he nodded his agreement.

“How often do you play?” Dr. Welsh asked, and she must have spotted Bucky’s wincing at hearing the funny term; it just sounded so… so BDSM, so _whips and chains_ when she talked about it like that. She rephrased. “How often is Steve ‘Daddy’ when you’re together?”

Bucky turned back to Steve and found that he looked almost confused by the question, as though he couldn’t figure out how it was particularly important or relevant. Bucky couldn’t say he really knew either (Steve was _knotting_ him again—what else mattered?), but he trusted that Dr. Welsh had a reason for asking.

“Sometimes it’s even when we’re not even having sex,” Bucky said, “but when we are, um. It’s most of the time? Lately, at least.”

He lifted his eyebrows at Steve, requesting confirmation.

“More and more since we started,” Steve added with a nod. “Especially since Christmas Day.”

“Christmas Day,” Dr. Welsh repeated. “Is that when this began for you?”

Steve shook his head. “No—not the _Daddy_ bit. But it was the first time I knotted Bucky,” he said. “At least since…”

He trailed off with a vague wave of his hand, and out of seemingly nowhere, an almost random thought popped into Bucky’s head. He found his mouth moving to voice it.

“I think, um,” he mused, mumbling to himself more than really speaking to Steve or even Dr. Welsh. “I think you’ve been Daddy every time we’ve had sex since then.”

For some reason, Bucky felt weird after the words came out. There was a prickling in the back of his head, and maybe it had something to do with whatever note Dr. Welsh was now quietly writing down for herself—or maybe it was the question she ended up asking next. He blinked, trying his best to shake the funny feeling out.

“So Steve,” Dr. Welsh began, sounding like the paragon of casual speaking. “You’ve been Daddy each time you’ve knotted. Is that correct?”

Steve tensed in his seat next to Bucky. It wasn’t much—maybe not even enough for Dr. Welsh to notice—but it was enough for Bucky to feel it. He knew Steve well enough to be able to tell that the inquiry had put him on the edge of being defensive, even if Steve probably wouldn’t have been able to explain why if someone had asked him. Bucky found himself tucking a foot behind Steve’s ankle, hooking it lightly, a tiny gesture of intimacy to remind Steve that he was here and that they were doing this together. He cleared the worry from his own throat.

“Yeah,” Bucky answered when Steve hesitated. “That’s right.”

Dr. Welsh seemed almost surprised by Bucky’s answer—perhaps not by the answer itself, but by the fact that it had not come from Steve. Her naturally intense eyes peered over the top of her glasses and considered Bucky, and she gave him a nod, noting his response.

“Thank you. I’d like to take it back a few weeks if that’s okay. I want to talk a little more about when you first began to explore this together.” She adjusted the cross of her legs and sank back into her armchair. “Bucky, you said that you’d already suspected that Steve might be receptive to exploring the idea before you brought it to him. What was it that made you think that?”

Bucky was glad of the question. The change in topic seemed to relax the new tension in Steve’s muscles, and Bucky’s answer was easy. He directed it at Steve instead of Dr. Welsh.

“I knew how much you like taking care of me,” he said simply. “I thought that we could play on that.”

Steve released a gentle puff of an exhale. His eyelids fluttered the smallest bit, and Bucky could practically see the affection blooming in the open blue of his eyes.

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve said softly. “I love taking care of you.”

Dr. Welsh didn’t say anything else right away, so Bucky allowed himself to be absorbed by the warm cloud of emotion between him and Steve for a moment. It certainly wasn’t the first time the two of them had ruminated on this thought together; Bucky could recall in almost perfect detail that first evening spent in a bubbling hot tub, trading kisses and sharing secrets about what each of them really wanted. Looking now through the mere inches of separation between them on their therapist’s couch, Bucky wondered if maybe it had always been destined that Steve would one day be his Daddy.

“I’m proud of you two for doing your homework after our last session,” Dr. Welsh said eventually, breaking Bucky’s reverie. “For making a point to be together and just have fun, without worrying yourselves too much about knotting.”

Then the doctor paused. With an unwelcome feeling in his stomach, Bucky could hear the silent ‘but’ hanging off her tongue. She turned her attention to him.

“Bucky, do you think that knotting was on your mind at all when you first decided to bring this idea to Steve?”

It was a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, but Bucky knew he had to be careful with his answer. ‘No’ would have been a lie—he could never let himself lie to Steve—but for some reason, saying ‘yes’ felt like it would be a betrayal. He settled in the middle.

“Kind of? I mean… it’s not like I was in a hurry about it. We were okay—we were _great_. But I… I figured it wouldn’t hurt to experiment.” Bucky shrugged. “Just to see if it could help us. And I thought that being, you know… being _Daddy_ could be something he’d really like.” He shot Steve a grin that was probably too toothy, but he didn’t care. He did his best to hold onto the warm smile that Steve returned, before nibbling on his own lower lip, working out the rest of a thought. “But I… I also knew that my Heat would come eventually. So I guess, um. I guess I was kind of thinking about that? Hoping that trying something new might push us in the right direction.”

It was the first time anyone had said ‘Heat’ since they walked into the room, and Steve predictably tensed again, but then relaxed. They had overcome a lot together already, worked out a lot of things between them—but they both knew there were still hurdles to come on the horizon. Neither had forgotten what brought them here in the first place.

Bucky squeezed Steve’s hand. Steve squeezed back.

“Thank you, Bucky,” Dr. Welsh said. “Steve, can I ask you some questions about your new experiences with knotting?”

Steve straightened his spine, broad chest forward. The expression on his face was a Captain America look if Bucky had ever seen one.

“Yes, ma’am. Please go ahead.”

Dr. Welsh smiled.

“Last time we were here, you expressed a lot of fears and anxieties about knotting Bucky after your shared experience during his Heat. Why do you think you’ve felt comfortable with it once you started playing the Daddy role?”

Steve’s face did a funny thing where he didn’t react, didn’t blink. Bucky knew him well enough to see that he didn’t know how to answer, and—further—that Steve’s own lack of responsiveness was inwardly making him nervous. For the second time in only a few minutes, Bucky found himself putting his voice forward and speaking when Steve could not, speaking _to_ Steve this time. He could tell that it didn’t escape the doctor’s notice as Bucky took over again.

“When… when _I_ was first thinking about how maybe it might help, I think I’d just hoped that it might make it easier for you to trust yourself more. Enough to… to let go.”

Bucky said it like it was casual and easy—for Steve’s sake—like he hadn’t actually poured a thousand thoughts and wishes into how being _Daddy_ might make Steve feel more comfortable with being _Alpha_. With his knot. But his performance must have been convincing, because Steve just pulled him in and pressed a kiss into his hair; a silent ‘thank you.’

Dr. Welsh glanced between them.

“Is that something that resonates with you, Steve?”

“I—yeah,” Steve answered, blinking and swallowing. He shook his head a little bit like he had stepped out of the room for a moment and was attempting to bring his mind back into the fray. “Bucky is right. Being Daddy… it helps. With that. With letting go.”

Over in her chair, Dr. Welsh hummed.

“Why do you think it helps?”

Steve didn’t answer right away, but Bucky didn’t expect him to. He fidgeted for a moment, clearly deep in thought.

“Sex with us has always been really intense,” Steve eventually responded. “It’s good, it’s _so_ good, but we—I get lost in it pretty easily. I can’t help but feel myself want to…” Steve’s eyes darted to the edge of the room, then back to his folded hands. “To _dominate_ Bucky.”

Bucky felt his own forehead scrunch up; Steve’s words made all the sense in the world, but his tone made no sense at all. He opened his mouth to speak up somehow, maybe to protest, but Steve was quick to intercept his speech as though he knew exactly what Bucky was going to say.

“And I _know_ you like it when I do that, sweetheart. I know. I love that you like it. But you gotta understand that whenever I feel myself getting like that, it’s hard for me to not be on high alert about what might happen to you. I know everything is supposed to be different when I’m not in rut, but still, I think it’s been a lot easier for me to let go ‘cause I know that there are… _rules_ in place. Safe words. That extra measure of protection so I can’t take things too far.”

Bucky kept his eyes locked on Steve and considered his words carefully. It made sense, he supposed; if Steve was still having trouble trusting some part of himself while he was having sex with Bucky, it followed that having some rules of engagement might make him feel more at ease. But there was still something about Steve’s answer—some fuzzy edge to it, some unseen piece—that made Bucky nervous. He’d have to trust Steve and the process for now. He gave Steve a cautious nod and slotted himself back into the comfortable place against Steve’s side.

“You said last time we were here that the knot felt like a reminder to you of your behavior when you were in rut.” Dr. Welsh went on. “Is it that behavior what you feel like you’re trying to protect against?”

Looking back, Bucky would later realize that Steve’s long, hesitant pause should have been his first clue. Steve’s eyes shifted around for a moment like he was regarding her words as though they stood directly in front of him. Bucky could not answer for him this time. He needed to hear Steve’s response just as much as Dr. Welsh did.

After what felt like an eternity, Steve nodded.

“Look, I… I still don’t actually think I would ever lose myself that way again. Dr. Pete said I won’t, and I wouldn’t let myself. I _know_ I wouldn’t. But us being together in those roles—me being Daddy—and having those measures in place…” Steve shook his head and squared up his shoulders. Bucky wondered what he was steeling himself against. “It’s for Bucky. So he knows what to do if things get too intense. It just makes me feel like I’m doing more to keep him safe.”

Bucky’s head hurt. Steve said everything with such confidence and conviction—but something didn’t feel right. None of it was right. Bucky’s hands were sweating.

“There are many different power dynamics that use rules and safe words,” Dr. Welsh offered. “Do you think you would have been comfortable with one of those instead?”

“Maybe. Probably, if that’s what Bucky wanted. But this…” Steve smiled. “Being Bucky’s Daddy just feels right. I don’t really think… think _he_ is in the room when I’m being Daddy.”

Bucky shivered.

_‘He.’_

Bucky didn’t think he’d ever heard a two-letter word carry so much weight.

“‘He’,” Dr. Welsh echoed. Steve’s phrasing still hung heavy in the air around them, and Bucky could tell the doctor was trying to choose her own next words very carefully. “You mean the more… _Primal_ side of your Alpha.”

 _What a word,_ Bucky thought to himself. He watched as Steve nodded.

“When I’m Daddy. It’s just… It’s just me and Buck. _He’s_ not around, and I’m the only one in control when we’re together like that. Bucky—clear-headed— came to me as himself and asked me to be that for him. It’s easier when I’m not ‘Alpha’, not… not like that. I’m just Bucky’s Daddy.”

Steve’s soft sentiments would have washed over Bucky’s spine like perfectly warm water if they had been spoken just ten minutes ago, when everything was golden and perfect, when their relationship felt healed and flawless. But now Bucky’s thoughts felt scrambled; white noise over dissonance. Half of him was filled with warmth, but the other half went damp and chilly at the way Steve kept saying _he_ , as though there were some other Alpha inhabiting him, day and night, living off Steve like he was nothing more than a host body. Instead of seeing Steve’s new attitude as a contrast to the fearful, dejected man who had sat next to him last time they were in this room, Bucky now saw it as a reminder.

He almost didn’t notice when Dr. Welsh started talking again, this time to him instead.

“Bucky, does it surprise you to hear Steve say any of these things?”

Bucky tried not to look startled by the address. He blinked a few times, licking his dry lips.

“No,” he answered. It wasn’t a lie, he already knew that Steve felt safer when he was Daddy, even if he hadn’t realized that even _Daddy_ was still looking over his shoulder at the ghost of rut. “Not really.”

He didn’t say anything else; not at first. But then he looked at Steve, and he saw the invisible glass that now stood between them, and Bucky knew that he needed to be honest. For both of them.

“Bucky,” Dr. Welsh started, looking at him consideringly, “do—”

But the words were already bubbling up in his chest, trying to escape the place where they had been lying in wait for too long.

“I think about that Heat,” Bucky said to Steve. “About the way you were when you were in rut. I do.”

He never took his eyes off Steve. His boyfriend went rigid, opening and closing his mouth like he didn’t know what to say or where to begin.

“Sweetheart…”

But Bucky was quick to put a hand on Steve’s arm.

“No, just… listen, Stevie. It doesn’t scare me to think about it. The Heat… it happened, and we were together for it, and I don’t regret that. I’ll never regret it. I wish that I had set off that tase, but not because I thought you were going to _hurt_ me—but because that’s what I’d promised you I would do.” Bucky took a deep breath. “I know I failed you. I’ve forgiven myself for that. But the way you’re so guarded about it—”

“Bucky,” Dr. Welsh interjected. “We need to respect Steve’s part in these sessions and ask him about this before we go any further. The three of us haven’t talked in much depth about this before.”

Bucky heard her words and blanched. Dr. Welsh was right. They hadn’t talked about it during their previous appointment. They hadn’t been ready.

He wasn’t sure if they were ready now. He was even less sure that it mattered.

“Steve,” Dr. Welsh began again, addressing Steve directly, “do you feel comfortable talking with us about the experience you had while you were in rut?”

Steve hesitated, but he nodded his answer—but not at her. His eyes were locked on Bucky.

“I’ve forgiven myself, too, Buck. I told you I wasn’t going to feel guilty about it.” Steve lowered his voice. “I promised.”

Bucky didn’t know if he could maintain eye contact without his heart breaking. Where was his confident Alpha now? Where was the cocksure Daddy who had worked Bucky up in the cab with his teasing? Where was Bucky’s fearless love?

“Okay, so it’s not guilt,” Bucky allowed, sad and frustrated with what now felt like ancient problems. “But then it’s still fear. It’s still something that comes between us.”

There was a pregnant pause when Steve said nothing in response. He simply stared, and his face would have looked crestfallen if not for the pain written across it. But Bucky had more left to say. He couldn’t keep it in to save Steve the hurt—not if this was going to work the way that they needed it to.

When Bucky spoke again, he was quiet.

“Before we went to Vermont, I was thinking a lot about it. How you felt when you were all around me. In rut. The way you took control.”

“That wasn’t really me, Buck,” Steve stopped him, taking one of Bucky’s smaller hands between his two and leaning forward with an imploring expression on his face. “Not… not the bad parts. You know that. That was _him_.”

Bucky ran his other hand through his own hair, breathing out. Exasperated.

“Steve, I… Okay. That’s fine. Then I was thinking about _him_ —how you didn’t let _him_ bite me, but he still…” Bucky stopped and took a few calming breaths. “I know I remember it differently than you do; I know you barely remember anything at all. But what I remember is that even when you were out of your head, you— _he_ still found a way to take care of me. He kept me close and he… he scent-marked me. Instead of biting.” Then Bucky lowered his voice, his last words coming out as almost a whisper. “I loved it.”

Steve drew in an odd, shaky breath. He cast his eyes downward, no longer staring into Bucky’s heart but looking at their joined hands instead.

Bucky felt like he was finally letting something loose. He couldn’t rein it in now.

“I loved it when you were like that, Steve,” Bucky said again, and he let his voice grow stronger with each repetition. “I loved it just as much as I love you when you’re being Daddy, or when you’re just—just _you_. And before we went on vacation, I had been thinking about how you still do that, even outside of the Heat. How you protect me. All that time you spend scent-marking my neck, how… how careful you are with me. Sometimes I think you don’t even know you’re doing it. And then I realized how much it felt the same way that it did when you were rutting, because it’s not just you or him. It’s you and him _both_. You work together to take care of me.”

Steve still wouldn’t meet his eyes. His jaw was set tight, and his breathing became heavier at Bucky’s implication that Steve and the Alpha inside him could have something in common—or could somehow be the same.

“I wanted to ask you to just let _go_ , to be every version of you. No part of you would ever hurt me, or even do something I didn’t want. But I also didn’t think you would see it that way. I was afraid to just come out and say those things because I thought… I don’t know. I thought it would scare you even more. I thought that you didn’t trust that part of you to love me and to keep me safe at the same time.” Bucky sighed. He slipped his sweaty hand from Steve’s, and—finally—Steve looked up. “At first—when I came to you and asked for ‘Daddy’—I think I was just trying to give that feeling another name for you. That instinct to care for me. I’d hoped that you would feel less afraid if I came to you in that role and asked you to—to take care of me and let me just… surrender. I thought you would trust yourself and let that happen, and you did. Because it’s like you said: I was asking to surrender to _Daddy_. No one else.”

Bucky would later look back and realize that it was Steve’s face when he heard those final two sentences that made Bucky understand. It was the flash of dread, nothing more than a flinch—but it was also a bullet passing through a front of conviction as strong and solid as the soldier himself, struggling to break through to the other side.

“I… did all that because I thought that the problem was you didn’t totally trust yourself not to hurt me. Not all of the parts of you.”

An incomplete knowledge he couldn’t explain settled heavily inside Bucky’s chest. He found that he had to look away, eyebrows bunching together, diverting his eyes from Steve’s warm body to the corner of the office. The words came out on their own accord.

“Until today, I thought I was right.”

Steve’s breath hitched.

“Sweetheart…”

“But that’s not really it,” Bucky said, looking back at his Alpha with a new fire of determination. “Is it Steve? That’s not the whole story.”

Steve looked like he had turned to stone under Bucky’s stare. He hardly breathed; he hardly blinked. He stared back at Bucky with wide eyes like he was looking into a lion’s mouth and hoping that avoiding quick movements would get him out unscathed.

“I do trust that I won’t hurt you,” Steve said carefully. “I swear; I’d die first. That doesn’t mean I trust _him_ not to try.”

And still, every intuition inside Bucky screamed to high heaven that what Steve was saying was _wrong_. There was no version of Steve Rogers—in this universe or in any other—that could ever lay a finger to hurt Bucky. Steve knew that; he had to. Even drunk on their unequaled level of a soul-deep connection and the deluge of rut instinct, Steve hadn’t done a single damn thing to harm him, even when the doctors later told them that Steve resisting a bite should have been impossible.

But Bucky could not say the same for himself. Unlike Steve, he _had_ let the Heat get the best of him. He could have stopped Steve. He’d had the tase in his hand the whole time and could have used it when things had gotten dicey—as he had promised Steve that he would. He never did. Bucky had since forced self-forgiveness and come to peace with his mistakes, but the fact remained that he had been willing to hurt Steve by taking away his _choice_ , all because that shameful need inside him had wanted it all badly enough to let Steve bite him even when Steve hadn’t been ready for that.

“Just… please, Buck. Please believe that it _wasn’t_ me during your Heat.” His throat bobbed under a swallow. “It wasn’t… It wasn’t either of us.”

And then all of the pieces came together in Bucky’s mind, glinting under the shining light of memory, each one falling into its place.

Soft, hot tendrils of recollection slithered in, and for a moment Bucky thought he might be falling backwards. His spinal cord felt like it was halfway to the floor even when he knew he was standing up straight.

First, it was _those_ words, this couch, the raw tone of Steve’s voice when he sat right in that very same spot six weeks ago and swore _, ‘we weren’t ourselves, we did things we wouldn’t have done otherwise,’_ and then—

—and then it was the moonlit winter sky above a bone-warming hot tub with Bucky wrapped up in his Daddy’s lap and both of their voices speaking—' _if there’s something you want, then I want it, too’_ and _‘I think that’s what scares me most’_ and—

Steve’s voice broke through and yanked Bucky upright, back into the room.

“I promise that I trust myself to keep you safe. No matter what. But… But I don’t want to have to fight him off again. You think that he’s something that he’s not, sweetheart. He’s _not_ like Daddy, he’s not a good guy, he—Jesus. He tried to hold you down and sink his fucking _teeth_ into your skin just so he could make absolutely sure that you were his. He wanted to control you, he wanted to make you _his_ without—shit… I’m sorry, Buck. I can’t.” Steve breathed deep and shook his head. “I just don’t trust him around you.”

And then Bucky was speaking, answering, his own voice lower and hoarser than it had any right to be.

“No, Steve. You don’t trust _me_ around _him_.”

Steve’s eyes went wide. Dr. Welsh seemed tense, sitting up.

“Bucky, let’s stay calm—”

“—The thing that you’re most afraid of isn’t _him_ or what _he_ wants. You don’t think he wants to hurt me, or to—to control me against my will. What scares you is that I _wanted_ to give everything to him. Because you knew.” Bucky stopped a hiccup. “You _know_. You know that the reason I didn’t set off the tase was that there’s a primal side to me, too. The part of me that can make decisions without the rest of me getting a say in it. The part of me that would have done anything to be bitten by you when I was in Heat, even if all the other parts of me knew that it wouldn’t be right to let that happen when you had already asked me to make sure that it didn’t. You know I was weaker than you.”

“Bucky, _no_ , you’ve never been weak a day in your—”

“But I was, wasn’t I?” Bucky couldn’t help but raise his voice now. “And that’s just it. _Admit_ it, Steve. I’m what terrifies you. You know you can control yourself, you—control _him_ , whatever. You proved that already. What you’re scared of is that the deepest parts of me want the deepest parts of you so much that I couldn’t stop myself from acting on it. It’s not the Alpha in you that you’re afraid of. It’s the Omega in _me_.”

Bucky had to look away, unable to keep up the eye contact when Steve was looking so gutted. He tried to level out his breathing and blink back the first stirrings of tears prickling the corners of his eyes.

This wasn’t how he’d thought this day would go.

“Why, Steve?” Bucky asked, voice impossibly tiny. He swallowed the lump in his throat and licked his dry lips. “I thought… Do you not want—”

“—You are _all_ that I want, Buck.”

Bucky’s eyes snapped up. For a finite window of time, Steve’s face was no longer the imploring picture of pleading, but instead was hard and rigid with his eyes spitting an adamant kind of fire that burned through to Bucky’s bones. He himself was struck still, holding himself with crossed arms.

Then all of that changed. Now, Steve’s expression was eviscerated and raw, so open that it hurt Bucky to see it.

“My heart fucking _broke_ the first time I saw you,” Steve said. “The first time I smelled your scent. Did you know that?” He paused then, and he softened his voice. “You were so beautiful. I hadn’t even asked you to coffee yet, but I saw you and I smelled your scent and I knew you were for me. And I thought that if there was even a chance you wouldn’t want me, that—and I was thinking, ‘god, if I can’t have him, if I can’t make him _mine’_ … Like you were something to be had. To be owned.” Steve laughed hollowly. “Even then, that possessive fuck was inside of me.”

Steve looked down at the ground. Bucky spotted him opening and closing his fist where it lay on his own thigh, as though Steve were trying to keep himself from throwing a punch at a ghost.

“When you went into Heat… I felt it. _He_ felt it. It was that part of you, Buck, that…” Steve clenched his jaw and gestured with a reluctant wave of his hand. “That primal part of you. Calling out to him. Submitting. Pleading with him to… to bite you.”

Steve’s voice cracked under the weight of his final words. He looked to be out of breath. Half of Bucky wanted to go to him, to move back down Dr. Welsh’s couch until he was close enough to wrap Steve up and hold him to his chest and protect him from himself. The other half wanted to scream at Steve until his throat was bloody.

“I _wanted_ to submit, Steve. His only crime was trying to give me what I was asking for,” Bucky said instead. He shook his head. “You can’t punish him for that.”

Steve made a frustrated noise and moved like he was going to shoot off the couch, but he didn’t. He sighed shakily and visibly forced himself to take a few deep breaths.

Bucky remained silent, staring on while Steve pulled himself together.

“That’s just it, sweetheart—it wasn’t _you_ asking. Not really.” Calming himself, Steve tentatively placed a hand on the couch cushion halfway between him and Bucky. It was an invitation Bucky couldn’t bring himself to take. “Look, I… I love that we’re so Compatible. We’re special together, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world. But it kills me to think that something inside me would make something inside of you want to give up so much. Your independence… Your agency.”

“Omegas can be bonded without giving all that up,” Bucky argued. “You know that. I _know_ you know that.”

“But I’m terrified that you’ll want to give it up anyways—because of me. Because of our connection. You don’t deserve for an Alpha to try and take that from you, even by accident, even if some part of you wants to offer it when the rest of you isn’t ready. You’re so _good_ , Buck.” Steve’s lips strained with a heartbroken smile. He looked like he was helpless to stop it. “You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met, and you’re funny, and you’re talented, and you—and you’re a _survivor_.”

He eyed the metallic grafting up and down Bucky’s left arm. Strangely, it was the most vulnerable Bucky had ever felt with Steve’s eyes on him.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world to even be let near you. You left your last boyfriend because he wanted to keep you from living the life that you wanted for yourself, and the thought that I—that not only did I try to _force_ a bond on you when I was in rut, but that your instincts and our Compatibility actually tricked you into thinking that was something you _wanted_ to do? I…”

Steve trailed off. He hung his head in his hands.

As the room dipped back into a thick silence, Bucky found that he couldn’t sit still on the couch any longer. He stood and began to pace at the edge of Dr. Welsh’s office, his mind whirring like angry machinery.

Somewhere along the way, this whole thing had ceased to be only about their relationship; it was about _Bucky_ , about his future, his life. The notion felt so oddly self-centric—something Bucky had rarely allowed himself to be wherever Steve was concerned—but it was impossible in that moment for him to look anywhere except inward.

He pinched his brow and closed his eyes, trying to grab onto even just one of the hundreds of thoughts flitting through his mind.

Was there any truth to what Steve was saying? Had Bucky—at any point during their relationship—thought that he wanted something that he really didn’t? His thoughts gleamed across all of the money Steve spent on him, despite Bucky’s initial protests, and how Steve had paid every bill and had spoiled Bucky every chance he’s gotten since the first day that Steve moved in—since Steve moved _himself_ in—and how Steve had bought the entire fucking building Bucky lived in and torn half of it apart so he could change Bucky’s space and make it bigger and then there was this whole second bedroom that Bucky couldn’t help but think would make an awfully perfect nursery one day and—

No. _No_. Bucky, by his own prerogative, _did_ want those things. Now, later, forever—and not because an Alpha had pushed them on him. Life was different every day, and Bucky was his own person; he was allowed to change himself and his mind with it.

Just because Bucky had always told himself that there was pride in getting by on his own didn’t mean he had to. Just because he’d never thought he was someone who should be showered with gifts didn’t mean that he couldn’t decide to listen when Steve told him that he was. Just because the rest of the world might judge him for wanting to move so fast in a new relationship didn’t mean that he wasn’t allowed to set his own pace, to do whatever felt right for him.

Steve—the fucking asshole—was what felt right for him.

Bucky was proud of the life he had built for himself. He’d had to overcome some roadblocks to make it happen, and he’d walked through literal fire to get where he was—but he’d done it. He was in love with his career and the work he did, but if one day he woke up and decided that he would rather stay home and pump out a baby or fifteen, that he wanted to live a year or the rest of his life with a pup on his tits? Nobody except Bucky could decide that was what Bucky wanted. If he got fucking tired of being a _‘survivor’_ and wanted someone else to hold him and keep him from falling so he didn’t have to stand up on his own every day? It was Bucky’s right to ask for that help.

The very idea that Steve could somehow… _brainwash_ Bucky into wanting the things he very much did want sat like a sour weight in his gut. It wasn’t just wrong; it was insulting. His submission and vulnerability were his to give away.

“So… what, then?” Bucky asked, sounding halfway to hysterical in his own ears with his humorless laughter. “You just—you were worried I’d choose to give up my independence or something, so you took away any opportunity I could have had to make that choice? Did you think that was _better_ somehow?”

“Buck—”

“—Or maybe that’s the real reason you like ‘taking care’ of me, huh? Not ‘cause you wanna learn what I want and give it to me, but so you get to _decide_ what I want—”

“—That’s not—”

“—Bucky,” Dr. Welsh’s voice cut in, calm but still sharp as a knife. “It’s time to sit back down.”

But Bucky was seething now. He ignored her, walking over to Steve and stopped, bending his spine towards him, towering over Steve for once.

“Okay, Steve,” Bucky spat. “You want me to have my own agency—to be able to decide what I want for my own life? Then _stop trying to make those decisions for me_.”

Bucky wasn’t sure if he was still breathing, and he didn’t really care. He felt like he’d been hit by a train, like there was bruising in his chest, except all that was there were pent-up tears.

“I need you to take some deep breaths, Bucky.”

Bucky blinked, hard. He tried to listen to Dr. Welsh, but each labored breath that he took felt like it lasted a hundred years.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Steve whispered. “I never… I never set out to make your decisions for you. I just thought I was giving you a better chance to be _you_. I thought… when I’m with you and we’re… when I’m being Daddy, there’s no space for anyone else but us. No influence. I can keep _him_ out that way—away from you.” Steve smiled at him, weak and feeble. “I can keep you safe, sweetheart. You’re so brilliant on your own, and I thought that if I could stop him from trying to twist into thinking that you want to give the rest of your life over to me when that’s not—”

“—How do you _know_ that’s not what I want, Steve? You’ve never even asked.”

The silence that fell over the office was deafening. Steve looked as though Bucky had shot him in the gut. Bucky half-expected him to start pressing his hand to the wound and double over onto the rug.

Bucky had said it. It was out. Bucky was _done_ pretending like they were a normal couple. He was done pretending like it was too soon to want this forever.

He was done pretending like he didn’t see beauty in all the places that Steve saw terror.

“The difference between you and me, Steve, is that I don’t think that the primal part of me is some terrible, other person.” Bucky felt gross to be the only one standing, but he couldn’t sit. Not now, not today. His eyes welled up with anger. “It’s not a fucking… it’s not a _parasite_. It’s a part of me. And I understand that you’re angry with that side of you for wanting to bite me, because I’m still angry with that side of _me_ for trying to draw it out of you when you asked me to stop it from happening. But we…We didn’t know what we were getting into, Steve. There’s never been anyone like us before, and I—and we…” He stopped and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “We hadn’t even met those parts of us yet.”

No one said anything after that. Dr. Welsh might as well not have been in the room. Steve’s clear blue eyes stared back at him, wide with shock and such rawness that it made Bucky’s soul twist inside him.

Bucky couldn’t breathe. Bucky couldn’t stay.

“Bucky—”

“—Sweetheart, _please_ , don’t go, don’t _do_ this—”

But he didn’t look back.

Gently as he could without making it slam, Bucky shut the door behind him on his way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ** Stop scrolling.  
>  **
> 
> **DETOUR:**
> 
> It is now time to depart from our main storyline and return to a moment in our past. Before continuing to Chapter 10, I am now directing you to read the 11k-word Steve POV fic [**_Red_**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27801001) to hop inside the head of one rutting Steve Rogers. I promise the pay-off will be worth it.


	10. Home (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky go home.

Bucky slammed the apartment door behind him. No one was around to hear the sound.

His recollection of the whole cab ride back from Manhattan—the cab ride Bucky had taken alone—was cloudy and messy, his head still reeling from everything that had happened. From everything that had been said. He tossed his keys into the bowl next to the door and headed into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. His throat was bone-dry.

Bucky’s anger had begun to morph into something different around the time he’d crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. The blindsided feeling that first shook him so badly had ebbed. In its place came hurt and confusion.

_“How do you know that’s not what I want, Steve? You’ve never even asked.”_

It was true. Carrying himself through life was exhausting; so what if Bucky wanted to be vulnerable sometimes? To let go, to allow someone else to hold him and help carry him forward? It wounded him to know that Steve _wanted_ to be that person for him just as much as Bucky wanted it to be Steve, but that Steve was intentionally holding himself back from letting him have—from letting _them_ have—the most important parts of that desire.

All because Steve thought Bucky didn’t want him for the right reasons.

He finished the contents of his water glass before eyeing the bottle of red wine on the countertop, still open but corked after their dinner of Italian take-out the previous night. Bucky shook his head; maybe later. Maybe when his head wasn’t spinning with a blend of emotions that were increasingly inclusive of doubt and guilt.

Steve had never asked Bucky what he really wanted. At the same time, Bucky had never just come out and _said_ it. Bucky wasn’t faultless; communication was a two-way street, after all. A part of him wondered if it even would have mattered if he had been completely open and honest about his desires—about wanting to bond with Steve, about the way his wants and needs and priorities had shifted since they had gotten together—or if Steve would still have dismissed it as a trick of their Compatibility. Bucky immediately felt wrong for thinking it. Steve may have made some hurtful and even condescending assumptions in the vacuum of Bucky’s stubborn silence, but he had never been anything but attentive and trusting any time Bucky had stepped forward to actually communicate.

If only Bucky had managed to do that with Steve, instead of just with _Daddy_.

Bucky looked around at the mostly-finished renovations of their apartment as he crossed to their bedroom to shed his coat and his thick winter wools. It truly was a gorgeous space: the perfect size without feeling too expansive, filled with stylish but timeless features that could have been transported straight from a magazine if not for all the personalized details that Steve had put into its design—based on his constant requests for input from Bucky. Steve worked so hard and so meticulously to build them the perfect home. The perfect _life_.

The dichotomy of Steve’s behavior suddenly struck Bucky in the chest like a hammer.

Steve was drowning in his own caretaking instincts day in and day out; that much had never been clearer. But Steve was too afraid to allow an outlet for the flood through simply being Bucky’s _Alpha_ —so Steve had sought out new ways.

It had begun even before Bucky had asked him to be Daddy. Steve had taken it upon himself to shape and mold their new life together into a domestic fairytale in which he could dote on Bucky and provide for Bucky and then pass all of it off as simply wanting to _spoil_ him. Bucky had spotted the pattern over a month ago, before they had even gone away to Vermont, but he had always assumed it was subconscious on Steve’s part. He knew now that it wasn’t. Steve knew _exactly_ what he was doing.

Bucky shed his street clothes and headed to the new walk-in closet—roomy and complete, save for a missing coat of paint—and passed a narrow white door on his left. It was barred across with a silly strip of yellow ‘caution tape’ (Steve said it was the new utility closet, with too many open exposed and half-finished conduits to be safe right now), but Bucky paid it no mind as always. The strong scent of _Steve_ hit his nose as he walked past the line of Steve’s clothes hanging in their large, shared closet. For the first time ever, the smell made Bucky’s heart hurt instead of bringing him comfort.

The reality was that Steve was afraid. It wasn’t that Bucky hadn’t already known that Steve lived in fear of what might happen—what Steve might do—if he were to let himself go; Bucky had been painfully aware of that fact for months. Only Bucky had always thought that the fear was baseless and unwarranted, that it was just ‘Steve being Steve’ and being overly cautious wherever Bucky and his safety were concerned. But Bucky wasn’t in Steve’s head. Now, in the harsh new light that Steve’s confessions had shed on their problems in Dr. Welsh’s office, Bucky was beginning to realize that maybe he had been no better than Steve about assuming that things were not as they were.

Bucky inhaled deep and tried to swallow the overwhelming crowd of emotions in his chest. He threw on some sweatpants and an old t-shirt—his own, not Steve’s—and set out to find a distraction.

He checked his phone. There were no messages or missed calls from his Alpha.

—

It was after eight o’clock—almost four hours later—when Steve finally came home. He shut the door gently behind him as though not to disturb Bucky, but it was impossible to miss his entrance when Bucky was already waiting for him in silence at the kitchen table. His first glass of red wine sat mostly empty in front of him.

Bucky watched him move when he entered. Steve didn’t break eye contact as he mechanically hung up his own scarf and coat before crossing to the table slowly and carefully. He would have looked like he was approaching a wild animal with caution if his expression wasn’t so contrite.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve said softly.

Bucky gave Steve a weak smile. It wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t even passive aggressive. Bucky only felt tired.

“Hey, Steve.”

The line of Steve’s shoulders seemed to loosen as he took in Bucky’s calm demeanor. There was something different in his scent, something that spoke of sadness or perhaps yearning, but it was muted as though Steve were intentionally trying to dampen it. He stopped at the end of the table opposite Bucky and stood with his hands atop the back of a chair.

“It was pretty cold earlier,” Steve said. “On the way back. Saw snow.”

Bucky heard the obvious question in Steve’s tone. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Yeah, I know. I took a cab. Not the train.”

Relief made a brief and subtle appearance on Steve’s face, before his eyebrows knitted together again. Bucky was always amazed at how skilled Steve was at making his huge frame take up minimal space when he wanted to.

“Have you eaten?”

“I haven’t,” Bucky shrugged. “Wasn’t really hungry. You?”

“No. Wanted to see you first. But I…” Steve paused and swallowed. “But I also wanted to give you some time.”

The two of them regarded each other in silence. Steve held himself like he was a stranger in his own home, unwelcome. Bucky sighed. He considered telling Steve to just sit down already, but then his mind conjured up the image of them awkwardly staring at each other from across the table and the distance making them feel even further apart. He stood up instead, grabbing his near-empty glass and heading to the kitchen. He pulled another wine glass down from the cabinet without asking and filled them both with red from the open bottle.

Steve followed him quietly, nodding when Bucky passed him one of the glasses. They stood on either side of the kitchen island, drinks full and untouched atop of the shiny, new granite counters. Neither of them spoke nor took so much as a sip.

“Buck, I…” Steve said, breaking the thick silence. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t have an excuse. You were right, I—I should have told you what was going on in my head. I think it took me saying it out loud to realize how wrong it was. And I made too many assumptions about what you wanted.” Steve’s face was so earnest that Bucky could cry. “I’m so sorry.”

Bucky had known the apology was coming. Steve was never one to get defensive when he and Bucky had an argument—just another way he was frustratingly perfect, even as he was still human and flawed—so Bucky knew Steve would have left the therapist’s office torturing himself with thinking about all the ways that he’d done Bucky wrong.

“It’s okay, Steve. I shouldn’t have left, and I— _fuck_ ,” Bucky swore, remembering how rude he’d been to a woman that had been nothing but a helpful professional. “Dr. Welsh…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve cut in. “We, um. We talked. After you left.” He looked down and played with the stem of his still-full wine glass. “I think it was good for me.”

Things in the kitchen got quiet for a minute. Bucky wasn’t sure where to go from there—what words to choose, what moves to make—but he could sense that Steve still had things he wanted to say. Sure enough, Steve ended the silence by reaching across the countertop to cover Bucky’s metal hand.

“Tell me what you want, sweetheart—”

“—Please don’t call me that right now.”

Bucky’s voice was soft and honest; nothing aggressive, nothing angry. Steve still flinched at the request. Bucky imagined he could see Steve’s heart falling out of his chest and shattering across the countertop.

“What do you want, Buck?” Steve asked, his words not quite cracking but coming dangerously close. “I’m so _sorry_ , and I know it’s late, but this is me asking. I’m done making stupid assumptions.” He smoothed his thumb over the back of Bucky’s hand. “I want to know everything you want for yourself.”

In an ocean of slow heartbeats, Bucky felt a sudden fire light inside him. He pulled his hand from beneath Steve’s and turned it over, lacing their fingers together, squeezing tight.

“I want _you_.”

There was relief on Steve’s face when he squeezed Bucky’s hand in return. There was also a sense of exhaustion.

“Bucky, baby… you have me—”

“—No,” Bucky interrupted, “I have some of you. I want _all_ of you.”

Tension returned to Steve’s muscles with a pulsing against Bucky’s palm. Bucky couldn’t stop the exasperated sigh that escaped him and settled into the lines on his face. He released Steve’s hand and ran his fingers through his own hair, watching Steve’s expression fall when Bucky broke the contact.

“It’s not just about the Heats for me,” Bucky started. “Maybe it’s because we’re so Compatible… I don’t know. But I really, really don’t care, because it’s real for me no matter what. All I know is that when I’m around you, I feel good about myself. I feel _right_. And there’s that feeling deep inside me wanting to give up some of my control to you, and not just to Daddy _—_ to _you_.” He let out a shaky breath. “It feels so wrong to try and push that away.”

Steve remained stock still. His eyes bored into Bucky’s, but with a frightened sense of vulnerability instead of his usual visceral intensity. Bucky felt like he was taller than Steve, for once—like he suddenly had an upper hand that he did not care to be shouldered with.

“That’s why I need you to believe it, Steve. I need you to believe that _they’re_ a part of us. I need you to believe it’s not something you need to try and stop.”

Steve huffed out a broken, staggering breath as his eyelids fell shut. Bucky allowed the silence to retake the air around them while he waited for a response. He had put in the work; this ball needed to be in Steve’s court now.

With a determined shake of his head, Steve pushed off the edge of the countertop and turned, showing his back to Bucky as he ran a hand over his jaw and roughed up his own beard.

“I _can’t_ ,” Steve answered, voice finally breaking as he bit out his words and faced Bucky again. “I can’t believe it. Because if that’s true, then that would mean that _I_ was the one that was thinking those thoughts. I have to separate him from me because if I don’t, then that means _I_ was the one that would have rather bitten you without your consent—god, that I would have literally rather inflict physical _pain_ on you than to have to go on not possessing you. It makes me sick, Buck. All of that, everything. If I believe it then that guy was _me_.”

The skin of Steve’s cheeks went blotchy and pink as he spoke. The faint purple lines of the veins on his forehead became more visible, and Bucky realized he was watching Steve work himself halfway to a panic. He had only ever seen his boyfriend like that once before, sitting in an ugly chair in a hospital room looking bent up and broken just after Bucky had awoken from a Heat state. The urge to calm and care for his Alpha bubbled up quickly—but Bucky squashed it. He couldn’t save Steve from his own truth this time.

Bucky took a deep breath.

“That guy _was_ you, Stevie.”

Steve shook his head rapidly, almost violently, and angry tears of frustration threatened to escape his now bloodshot blue eyes. A sudden wave of certainty appeared to carry Bucky across the room, and he followed it, rounding the kitchen island and taking hold of Steve by his shoulders.

“No—listen to me,” Bucky said. “It was you, and it _is_ you. All of it—every minute. And you know what else? That deeper Omega side of _me_ —that guy? The guy that would have rather betrayed your trust than stop you from bonding us together with a bite, to stop you like _Bucky_ had promised _Steve_ that he would. That guy wasn’t some other… thing. He wasn’t just living inside me. He _is_ me.”

Bucky didn’t know how he expected Steve to react to him spotlighting an elephant that had so long lived in the room alongside them. Should Steve have looked hurt—surprised? Betrayed? Should Steve have done anything other than back away like a hard, moving statue with nothing to say, just the way that he did?

It wasn’t running exactly, and it wasn’t ignoring. All Steve did was put air and space between them. Bucky didn’t try to chase after him; he let Steve have the distance. But he couldn’t let Steve escape again.

“Those parts of us are still us,” Bucky beseeched. “They’re not something—something _else_ that’s been sewn onto us. They’re _us_. And you need to quit it with these lies you’ve been telling yourself about the man you must be to have done the things that you think you’ve done.”

Every additional second of Steve’s silence and stillness only fueled Bucky’s growing irritation. He was running out of ideas on how to get through to him, and he didn’t think it even mattered if they were doing this in front of a therapist, instead of just laying it bare alone in their kitchen. Could it even be done through talking? Was there _anything_ Bucky could say that would change Steve’s mind?

Bucky let out an impatient sigh. He turned on his heel and began to pace.

“Dr. Welsh had a word for it. She… she called it our ‘primal’ sides. And I just…” He ran a hand through his hair, laughing without humor. “I’ve thought of that word myself before, but you know what? _Fuck_ that word. Jesus, just… ‘primal’—what does that even mean? Do _you_ know, Steve?”

Bucky spun around to face Steve again, but what he saw doused out the embers of his frustration. His Alpha—that mountain of a man with the physical presence of a god—was tiny and small inside the confines of a body that looked too big for him. His shoulders were tucked in and his back was hunched over, arms crossed over his chest, face tilted towards the floor with blue eyes staring up at Bucky through those long, blond lashes.

Steve looked wounded, bleeding. But not because of Bucky. Steve was a victim of a universe that had no paradigm for him as a soldier, or as an Alpha, or even as just a man. He was lost without a compass. Whether it be his body or his mind or both at the same time, Steve had spent his entire life stuck inside a vessel he didn’t trust to carry him home.

“I know what it means,” Bucky said, lowering his voice as he answered his own question. “And I’ll tell you.”

Bucky let his feet carry him across the room. He wanted to hug Steve, to crowd him, but he made himself stop short. They both needed the room to breathe in the truth.

“Primal,” Bucky started, his voice sounding much more raw than it should have considering the amount of silence they had split between them, “ _primal_ means that when you strip away everything else about you—your name, every experience you’ve ever had, every person you’ve ever met, every right, every wrong, everything you’ve ever seen, tasted, touched—it’s the _one_ part of you that you’re left with. It’s the only part of you that’s there when you’re born. It’s the first thing you’ll ever have and the last thing that will ever leave you. And you know what that sounds like to me, Steve?” Bucky paused to swallow down his own breath. “It sounds a lot like a soul.”

It was the last word that broke Steve and wrenched a sob from his chest. He tried to cover his face with his hand but Bucky rushed forward to catch it, pulling it down with two hands of his own to keep Steve from hiding himself. He pressed a rough kiss to Steve’s knuckles.

“And ours?” Bucky pressed, chasing after the hole in Steve’s armor and fighting his way inside. “Our souls want to be together, _need_ each other’s so perfectly—just—fuck, ‘out of range,’ right Stevie? Our souls need each other’s so much that they can’t even put a number on it. Half a century of science and _we’re_ the only ones that no one can explain. So of _course_ the primal part of you would have done anything to bond us, of _course_ the primal part of me would have never wanted to stop it. They’re two parts of one whole… and they’d only just found each other.” He could hear the gravel and strain in his own words, and he didn’t give a single shit what it betrayed; his eyes were on Steve and his cards were on the table. “They’d been down there, all our lives, waiting to meet each other and we just—just didn’t know it yet.”

Steve bit down on his own lip so hard that it turned white, listening with a chest that was visibly tight with pain and staring down at Bucky like his very existence should have been impossible. Maybe it was. Maybe they both were. His free hand touched Bucky’s hair reverently, smoothing over all the places where Bucky’s anxious fidgeting had rucked it up.

“I’ve said that I was born for you,” Bucky croaked, his voice now beginning to fail him. “Made for you. But maybe that’s not how it went. ‘Cause I know you think that the point of you is to take blows so the rest of the world doesn’t have to, and you _died_ for the world, Steve—except you didn’t. You lived. So maybe… maybe you were born so you could die in that life and be born back into mine. Because I needed you, and you needed me. Because we’re not like other people; there will _be_ no ‘second bests’ for us.” Bucky tried to smile, but it felt wet and weak and under the weight of his own words. “You’re the other half of me.”

Steve’s eyes were rimmed with red. He had one hand still caught between Bucky’s while the other rested on the side of Bucky’s neck, and he was touching that most intimate spot, that sensitive skin just above the tender flesh where Bucky would let one man and only one man put his lips or his teeth ever again.

“So you want to know what I want?” Bucky asked. “I want to be your sweetheart, yeah, but what I really want is _us_. I want all of it. Every part. And I won’t deny it, won’t keep on pretending like I just need this now. I need this forever. I want to be your _Omega_ forever. I want us to bond, I want us to have babies together, want to—god fucking help me—wanna make little people one day that are half _you_ and half _me_ and I—”

And then Steve’s lips were on his and his face was between Steve’s hands and Bucky could taste tears on his tongue, and they were his own tears, and they were _Steve’s_ tears, and the salt of them was the salt of an ancient, unsullied Earth.

They sobbed openly into each other’s mouths. Bucky’s hands were everywhere—Steve’s neck, Steve’s back, Steve’s chest—frantically searching for something to cling to. Steve released Bucky’s face and took hold of him by the backs of his thighs. He gripped them, lifting Bucky up to let him wrap his legs around Steve’s middle, before carrying him to their bedroom with blind, stumbling steps, unwilling to break their desperate kiss.

Steve kneeled on the edge of the mattress as he laid Bucky down on the bed. Their bodies barely parted. He crawled up and caged Bucky in with his massive frame, and then Steve’s kisses became less sloppy and more _rough_ , more demanding, a stark contrast to his cracking voice and the fragile, tender lines on his face.

“I love you,” Steve whispered, nipping sharply at Bucky’s chin before doing the same to his lip. “I love you, I want you. Want _us_.”

Bucky nodded hysterically, wet nose sliding over Steve’s.

“ _All_ of us,” Bucky sobbed.

Steve’s energy shifted palpably. He made a powerful rumbling sound somewhere in his lungs and tightened his grip on Bucky’s hips, using raw strength to wrest their flushed bodies onto the center of the mattress, and then he stuffed his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck and _growled_ —

_“All of us.”_

Their clothes came off in a wild blur after that. Steve refused to take his mouth off of either Bucky’s lips or at least some inch of Bucky’s skin unless absolutely necessary, which meant that certain pieces of fabric could only come off if they were torn and ripped away. It didn’t matter. Steve would just buy them new things.

Bucky’s face was a red, tear-stained mess by the time Steve started pressing fingers inside him. He clung to Steve with every part of himself that could reach, wrapping his legs in a full circle around Steve’s waist, digging his fingers into Steve’s hair. His erection pressed up into the crease of Steve’s hip and thigh with just enough stimulation to make his dick weep. Steve’s beard was the perfect kind of abrasive against the skin of Bucky’s clavicle while Steve sucked bruises into his neck, leaving dark shades of purple right over his scent gland. Bucky felt wrecked before it had even really begun.

“Gonna show everyone that you’re _mine_ ,” Steve rasped into the cut of his jaw. He took Bucky’s earlobe between his teeth and bit down just hard enough to make it sting.

“Yes,” Bucky panted. He pulled on Steve’s hair to urge his mouth to roam and leave marks, squeezing his eyes shut, arching his body up into Steve’s. “ _Yes_.”

Foreplay wasn’t in the cards. Steve stretched him out efficiently on two and then three and then four fingers with all the desperation of impatience and all the meticulousness of caring. He pressed up into Bucky’s sweet spot enough to soak his wrist with slick, so much of it that Bucky thought he must have been gushing. He could feel the hot, heavy weight of Steve’s cock against the inside of his thigh, waiting, and Bucky wanted it _inside_ him, wanted that knot, wanted that claim. He wanted Steve to fuck him hard enough to carve out a permanent space for himself—a second space, this time just below the one that already shaped the _thud-thud-_ thudding of Bucky’s heart in his chest.

“ _Please_ , Steve,” Bucky pleaded, nails scratching red tracks on the nape of Steve’s neck. “Fuck me. Knot me full.”

Steve—powerful and consuming and once again the man that Bucky knew—answered the plea with a sound that was nearly a roar. He gave Bucky’s hole one last widening stretch before deftly removing his fingers and sitting back on his knees, making room to maneuver himself inside. He kept one hand encircled around Bucky’s thigh to hold him open, to spread him wide, and he used the other to guide the broad head of his cock to his sopping wet entrance. Bucky’s exhale tripped over his tongue.

There was no scorching hot teasing this time. There was no slow, tortuous, slide. There was no _‘baby boy,’_ no _‘yes, Daddy.’_ When Steve pressed his hips forward, he buried his length in one long, hard thrust, and instead of _‘so tight, sweetheart,’_ there was a steady stream of raw and guttural sounds. Bucky cried out at the searing stretch and the pleasure of no longer being hollow.

“Steve… _Alpha_ …”

Fully sheathed with no time to waste, Steve let go of Bucky’s thigh and lowered himself to bite down on a kiss. He shoved his arms beneath Bucky and took a hold of him by the backs of his shoulders, using the leverage to work himself deeper.

“Fuck!” Bucky shouted, the word hanging off the end of a ragged moan.

Steve groaned and tried to swallow the sound. Bucky hooked his feet around Steve’s legs the second Steve started to move, Steve’s hips dancing in long, deep thrusts that pulled his cock almost completely out before shoving it back in hard.

“Yeah,” Steve gritted out, “ _take_ it…”

Bucky had no tether. Each push of Steve’s hips heaved him further up the bed on a fast-track to being fucked into the headboard. He grabbed the round swells of muscle atop each of Steve’s shoulders and tried to steady himself, but it was no use. All he could do was hold onto Steve and kiss and be kissed and let his Alpha’s smoky scent wrap him up and own him.

Steve’s usual mindful precision and his way of methodically taking Bucky apart were absent and unnecessary. This wasn’t about that; this was frantic desperation. This was two bodies that had grown weary of taking up separate spaces trying to merge into one. This was the moon falling out of orbit and surrendering to gravity, crashing into the sea.

This was where he and Steve had always been headed.

Bucky was so close. He wasn’t sure if he had been crying the entire time or if these tears were new tears, but Steve’s tongue was there to lick them up all the same. Bucky’s hand began moving down towards his dick of its own accord. A loud snarling sound ripped free of Steve’s chest the minute he spotted the movement, and then Bucky’s hands were pinned to the sheets on either side of his head before he knew what was happening.

When his brain did catch up, he found Steve staring down at him with dark eyes and such an enormous, hulking frame that it blocked out the light of the bedroom. Everything about the expression on his face was _ravenous_.

“One day, when you’re ready,” Steve ground out, pounding his cock into Bucky’s body, “I’m going to pin you down—just like this—and I’m going to fuck a baby into you. _My_ baby.” He lowered his face, close enough for a little bead of sweat to hang from the tip of his nose and touch Bucky’s. “And then, when you’re walking around heavy with a kid that everyone knows is mine, I’m going to fuck you _again_ —” another brutal slam “—and again after that.”

Bucky came so hard that the whole building and block might have trembled.

His mind whited out for a while. When he came to, still helplessly trying to recover, he found Steve moving to sit back on his haunches between Bucky’s legs. He thought Steve was going to pull out. Instead, Steve used his arms to circle around Bucky’s waist, wrapping him up and easily hoisting his weight until he was straddling Steve’s thighs and sinking onto his cock.

The angle was intense, nestling Steve deeper than Bucky thought he’d ever been before. Steve didn’t even wait for Bucky to adjust; he took a firm hold of his hips, then began moving him on his cock like a warm, weightless ragdoll.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Bucky gasped.

His fingers buried themselves in Steve’s hair once more for stability, and he found himself tugging a little too tight when Steve gave him a particularly rough upward thrust. Steve growled at the unexpected pinch of pain, wrapping one hand around Bucky’s jaw in the flash of a second—hard. Bucky whimpered and slicked at the assertion of dominance. His body went willfully pliant.

Steve kept him just like that, bouncing Bucky’s body up and down while holding his jaw in his grip. A persistent, constant rumbling sounded in Steve’s chest like the sound of far-away thunder. His eyes locked onto Bucky’s with such fire and fierceness that Bucky wasn’t sure if it would burn him more to keep staring or to look away.

“My Omega,” Steve growled. “ _Mine_.”

Bucky was shaking. His dick was still soft between them, but apparently that did not matter because his body was tightening up like he was going to come again, or maybe like he had never stopped coming in the first place, or maybe that was just Steve’s knot beginning to expand and exert pressure against his inner walls.

“Yours,” Bucky swore.

Steve continued to fuck his own cock with Bucky’s heat until his knot was almost full to popping. Then he lifted Bucky, throwing him down onto his back gracelessly. He landed with a soft bounce, and there was barely time to refill his lungs before Steve was plunging his cock back inside and pounding him within an inch of his life, going and going and not stopping when his knot began to catch and trip over Bucky’s swollen rim.

“I want to bite you,” Steve breathed into the side of Bucky’s neck. He licked a stripe from the top of his shoulder to the bottom of his jaw, hot spit infusing woodsmoke into Bucky’s own scent. “Want to mark you. Here. For _me_.”

They both knew that Steve wasn’t talking about bonding him right then and there—Bucky would have to be in Heat for his bite to be anything but a wound—but it was the first time Steve had said the words out loud in a tone that wasn’t laced with guilt or regret. It was a promise, this time, and Bucky wanted it so intensely that his agreement came out as nothing more than a whimper. He clutched at the back of Steve’s head, trying in a frenzy to press the animal shape of Steve’s mouth harder to that spot, hoping that his Alpha understood his answer. The harsh nip of teeth over his gland told Bucky that he did.

All words disappeared once Steve’s knot was so full that he could no longer keep rhythm or pace. Steve lifted his body from its place atop Bucky’s long enough to wrap hands around Bucky’s hips and _pull_ , wrenching the entire weight of his smaller form downward until the bulging base of Steve’s cock pushed through and locked them together.

Bucky’s own yielding cry was drowned out by what broke free of Steve’s chest at the same time: a near-feral thing—a _primal_ thing. It sounded every bit like victory.

Steve caught himself on his forearms when the rumbling noise crested, stopping short of collapsing onto Bucky. Bucky wouldn’t have cared if he had; he felt like a live wire hanging down from the bedroom ceiling, and he wrapped his arms around Steve’s shoulders to try and insulate the shock, gasping as the thick cock inside him throbbed and filled Bucky up in long, warm pulses while the knot kept Steve’s seed from escaping.

 _“Alpha,”_ Bucky whined, choking on his own tongue, “‘lpha…”

With hips still moving in tight waves to chase the heat and the pleasure, Steve gathered Bucky in his arms and rolled them over on the mattress. Bucky ended up on top of Steve, sweaty bodies pressed flush together with his untouched dick—now hard again—smashed in between. He was encircled by Steve’s warmth and strength. He could feel it as Steve rode hard over the last dregs on his orgasm, and the shifting of positions had pressed Steve’s knot in a different direction and then—and then Bucky was coming, quaking with shuddering shock, clenching down around Steve hard enough to incite raw groans of wonder from their collective set of lungs.

“Jesus, baby,” Steve groaned. He grabbed each of Bucky’s ass cheeks in his hands and squeezed, pulling him even more tightly onto his cock and knot. “ _Yeah_.”

Unlike his first orgasm, Bucky’s second was long and drawn out. It was hard to tell when it really ended. He could sense that a significant period of time had passed before his grip on reality finally returned to him, but when it did, Bucky found that he was still laying on top of Steve with nothing but boneless weight and deep, matching breaths. The woven throw blanket they kept on their bed had been pulled over his backside to shield him from chill. Steve’s knot was still tying them together.

Bucky registered a light grumbling noise coming from his own stomach—and a louder noise from Steve’s—a subtle reminder that neither of them had eaten dinner. But Bucky felt full already; fuller than _full_. He felt complete.

“Sleep,” Steve whispered into Bucky’s neck when he started to stir, petting his sweaty hair while his mouth diligently licked and sucked lightly, as it had clearly been doing for quite some time. “Sleep, sweetheart. I’ll wake you up to eat.”

Bucky relaxed back into Steve’s chest, nodding. His heavy eyelids fell shut with ease.

His Alpha had him.

—

Steve did wake Bucky up about half an hour later, attempting his best to not jostle him as he pulled out and mostly succeeding. He shushed Bucky gently when he rubbed his eyes with a curious sigh, and then he flitted to the bathroom before returning with a warm cloth. Steve cleaned Bucky up with the same care and attention that he always did: wiping him down, kissing his skin with reverence, judiciously checking the reddened stretch of his hole.

Some things hadn’t changed. Bucky decided that he never wanted them to.

Steve dressed them both in his own loungewear once they were clean before guiding Bucky into the kitchen. Their dinner was a comfortable, quiet event, late and simple in the form of reheated pasta with some extra vegetables thrown in to freshen it up. Bucky never did have much of an appetite right after Steve fucked him so thoroughly—despite the insistences from his stomach—but he munched away happily to see the way Steve approved of him clearing his plate.

It was after ten o’clock by the time they finished eating, and both men were sated and exhausted. But Bucky wasn’t quite ready to sleep again, not yet. He could tell that Steve felt the same low thrum of energy by the way his hands kept wandering over Bucky’s upper body, touching him lightly over his clothing, fingers tracing along the newly bruised spots on his neck. It didn’t feel sexual; he knew Steve wasn’t gunning for a second round. Bucky leant into the tenderness and touch because the feeling was mutual. They just needed to feel each other.

“Come with me,” Steve said after putting the dishes in the sink. He took Bucky’s hand and led him back to the bedroom.

At first, Bucky assumed that Steve only wanted to hold him and cuddle together on the bed before drifting off to sleep for the night, and Bucky was fully ready to get behind that plan. But Steve did not take them to the bed, and instead did something Bucky wholly did not expect.

Steve brought them to stop in front of the narrow door to the half-forgotten utility closet—apparently still under construction—and he removed the little strip of caution tape, balling it up and tossing it into the bin.

“Open it, Buck.”

He regarded Steve questioningly, his brow scrunched up. Steve just gave him a reassuring smile and tilted his head in the direction of the door as if to say, _‘go ahead, sweetheart.’_

Bucky turned the knob and smelled fresh paint.

While he had never given much thought to the inside of a typical utility closet, Bucky knew they didn’t look like this. It was too large, for one, which logically shouldn’t have surprised him given that he knew the dimensions of the spaces around it, and the void between walls was more than was needed to house a water heater or an electrical box. The room was definitely a closet, no windows, but it was more like a fairly-sized walk-in. Bucky could tell that it was devoid of any open conduits or exposed wiring or whatever else Steve had claimed was inside, even though he couldn’t make out much in the dark.

“Steve,” Bucky mumbled, “what…?”

Instead of answering, Steve hooked an arm around the door frame and flicked a switch without stepping inside. A soft, white light came up over the closet from half a dozen recessed lamps laid into the ceiling, illuminating the small room. Confused but more than a little interested, Bucky let his feet take him across the threshold to peer around at the odd space that Steve had built.

The first thing Bucky noticed was the floor. It was unsealed concrete—a sign that whatever this was, it was still a work in progress—save for the sizable, finished oak platform that covered the floor at the back of the room. It was raised about two feet with a hollow middle that reminded Bucky of a small sandbox, or maybe or child’s ball pit: rectangular, extending from wall to wall on three sides, completely recessed at the center. It was maybe as large as a queen-sized bed, if not somewhat longer. A single raised step to one side connected the exterior platform with the floor.

Bucky walked further inside and turned. The source of the fresh paint scent was apparent on the walls, a warm, muted taupe. He could see now that the wall with the door, which was furthest from the funny wooden pit at the back, was covered in built-in white shelving and a row of cabinets. They laid bare for now.

“What _is_ this?” he asked Steve, the growing awe in his tone almost as evident as his confusion.

Steve smiled from his spot standing outside the closet door.

“It’s for you.”

Bucky laughed; he didn’t know what else to do. He eyed Steve warily, shaking his head.

“Okay, um. Thanks? But what—”

“Invite me in?”

Bucky went quiet for a moment, perplexed.

“Invite you…?”

But Steve just leaned against the door frame, grinning ear-to-ear while making a show of not stepping a toe inside.

“I can’t come in unless you ask,” Steve explained, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s _your_ nest, sweetheart.”

_‘Nest.’_

Bucky’s—

“Steve, you…” Bucky spun around and took in the four corners of the room once more, the very particular size of it, the carefully-built _thing_ at the back, like a pit but big enough for a bed, for a— “You built me a... a nesting closet?”

Steve was glowing. The exhaustion of their emotional day was still visible on his face—on Bucky’s face, too, he was sure—but there was a joy and an almost blinding shimmer spilling out of his pores in a way that Bucky wasn’t sure he had seen before. It was the kind of beauty that came from up in the clouds; unearthly. Unreal.

It _was_ real.

“So,” Steve probed, “can I come in?”

Bucky stared for a minute more, and then nodded dumbly. His eyes felt as wide as saucers. Steve crossed into the room and gestured to the light switch he had flipped earlier, and Bucky saw now that it was actually a set of sliders.

“It can be as bright or as dark as you want it to be,” Steve explained, toying with one track and showing Bucky how the lights could be dimmed. “And then this button turns it all off. There’s a remote for it, too.”

A remote. Because sometimes Bucky wouldn’t want to get up to change the lights. Because sometimes Bucky would want to stay in—to not leave his…

“Plenty of room to store your blankets and pillows.” Steve waved his hand towards the extensive rows of shelving, then pointed at a much larger cabinet on the floor. “A little refrigerator. I should always be around for whatever you need, but you know. This way you can keep water bottles and whatnot.”

Water bottles. Again, so Bucky wouldn’t have to leave. A well-stocked space where—

“No windows—obviously, defeats half the point—but those vents there and there,” Steve pointed to the discreet metal grating, “keep the air fresh and filtered, no scent in or out. The blocker strips on the door will help with that, too.”

A scent-proof room. For when Bucky was feeling particularly averse to other scents. For when Bucky—for when _Steve_ —may want to keep his own scent inside so that no one else could smell him.

“Using the wall hooks would be up to you, of course. But I figured it might be good to have them ready in case you want to drape some sheets around, make the ceiling feel lower. The, um, the floors aren’t done, as I’m sure you can see, but unless you want carpet then I was going to make them the same oak as the—”

“— _Nest pit_.”

As he said it, Bucky turned to face that funny wooden platform, that custom-built hideaway that Steve had made just for him. He heard Steve make a sound behind him, and then there were two strong arms coming around Bucky’s waist.

“Mm-hm,” Steve hummed, resting his chin on Bucky’s shoulder. “It’s just like me, Buck.” He pressed a kiss to the skin beneath Bucky’s ear. “Made for you.”

Now that Bucky knew exactly what this room was, his imagination flew off its leash. The step-up nest pit was an absolute perfect size, big enough to fit him and Steve and—and it would be padded, and Steve would buy a soft, custom mattress to fill it up perfectly. He could get fabrics in all his favorite colors and hang them from wall to wall to make the room feel even smaller and cozier, and he could keep the lights low, and if he wanted it brighter he could control that from his nest and oh, his _nest_ —Bucky would line it with the sheets and blankets from his and Steve’s bedroom, with the unwashed throw pillows from the living room couch, with—

“Wait,” Bucky said, interrupting his own thoughts. “What about… the couch at the cabin? The—my nesting couch? I thought you wanted…”

Bucky trailed off, puzzled, but Steve must have heard his unfinished question.

“I do want to spend your Heats with you at the cabin, sweetheart. If that’s still what you want. But there might be times when we can’t make it there, or you don’t want to go, and besides…” Steve rubbed his hands up and down Bucky’s sides, warming him up more than he already felt inside. “I know it’s kinda old-fashioned, and I know you don’t see these kinds’a closets around much anymore, but I… I think of how much a nest used to mean for an Omega, for their family. I think about the friends that I had growin’ up with Omega parents who had a little bit ‘a space for that kinda thing. How much it was the heart of their home. I sure didn’t know _everything_ that went on in those closets when I was a kid,” Steve laughed, “but I still knew it was safe space in a scary world. For the Omega. For anyone they wanted to invite in.”

“For their children,” Bucky added quietly.

He felt Steve pull in a deep breath and nod on the exhale, his cheek rocking against Bucky’s head, a ‘yes’ to Bucky’s addition.

Steve was right; nesting closets weren’t very common anymore, especially not in city homes. But their fade from popularity had more to do with the price of square footage and little to do with them being unwanted, undesired. Nesting closets were once also the place where Omegas gave birth to their children—and they still sometimes were, with the help of a qualified midwife. Bucky had never tried to imagine a space like this for himself, much less what he would use it for. The arms around his body gave him a squeeze that said he didn’t have to decide those things now.

Suddenly, Bucky’s back was no longer shielded. A little shiver went through him at the chill. He turned around inside the closet and found Steve dimming the overhead lights.

And then Steve—Bucky’s Alpha—kneeled before him on the ground, and Bucky’s heart flew apart inside one million rays of incandescent light.

_“Steve.”_

“Buck…”

Steve wasn’t down on one knee; that was for marriage proposals, for Betas or couples who couldn’t take or give the bite. No—Steve had _two_ knees on the hard, concrete ground, and two knees meant something else. _Two knees_ was kneeling, and kneeling was voluntary, blood-sworn submission. _Two knees_ was a level of trust that an Alpha would only ever give to their Omega and ask to be gifted their trust in return. _Two knees_ was roots in the ground; permanence. _Two knees_ was a solemn pledge for love, and for safety, and for life.

“Bucky Barnes,” Steve began, taking each of Bucky’s hands in his own and looking up at Bucky with brilliant blue eyes, the brightness of them clear even in the low light. “I have been alive for one hundred years. And it’s for that reason I know for certain that I am the luckiest man who has ever lived—in this lifetime or the last—because I am the man _you_ have entrusted with yourself. With your body, your heart.” Bucky found himself sniffling as Steve’s face broke into a smile. “Because I am the Alpha you chose with your soul.”

Bucky’s sniffling became a sob of pure joy when he heard Steve speak that last word. He recalled his own declarations only earlier that same night, a time that already felt like another age of the Earth. He remembered Steve’s face then, and Steve’s heart, and he looked down at his own hands now, caught in Steve’s palms, and he saw that same bleeding heart beating steadily in Bucky’s careful grip.

“I’m sorry it took so long for me to ask this, but I don’t want to spend another moment that I don’t have to not being joined together with you." Steve inhaled a deep breath. "So—when you’re ready—I want to give you my bite. When you’re ready, I want to have a child with you. When you’re ready—”

_“—Steve!”_

Bucky’s knees gave out beneath the overwhelming weight of happiness with a cry of Steve’s name. His Alpha caught him. Steve sat back on his own calves and gathered Bucky up in his arms, keeping him close, keeping him warm. Keeping him safe. He pressed kisses to every part of Bucky’s wet face that he could get his lips on and gave Bucky a second to catch his breath, patient.

“Buck?” Steve asked once Bucky’s heart had slowed. “When you’re ready… Would you do me the greatest honor in the world, and become my bonded Omega?”

This time, it was Bucky capturing Steve’s face and diving in for the kiss. It was messy and wet, full of teeth and huffs of laughter and unabated glee, and it was perfect. Their noses bumped clumsily as Bucky nodded his answer over and over and over again, breathing _“yes”_ into Steve’s mouth, _“I’m ready”_ against Steve’s chin, echoing his own _“I’m yours”_ as Steve pressed kisses to the side of his purpling neck: a promise, now a plan.

They kissed and laughed and smiled until their faces hurt and they were out of breath and the concrete floor became too cold. Steve bundled Bucky up in their bed, turning off the lights before crawling in behind Bucky and curling around his body.

Bucky Barnes fell asleep with a smile on his face and the Alpha that fate gave him safe in his arms.


	11. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes into Heat. His Alpha is ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I invite you to grab a glass of wine and enjoy our boys' fluffy, sexy happily ever after <3
> 
> Visual references for reminder: See [Steve's Vermont cabin](https://i.imgur.com/V06hGqa.jpg) and [Bucky's nesting couch](https://i.imgur.com/tP5W9Wm.png).
> 
> **Chapter-Specific Warnings: SOMNOPHILIA and Pre-Negotiated/Consensual DUB-CON due to biological imperative, could be considered Total Power Exchange**. I am choosing not to give additional details or tag the fic. Read at your own risk. I promise that everyone wants everything. 
> 
> Thanks for coming along on this ride.

_Spring_

**steve**

**—**

Steve pulled the infuser out of the mug, excess liquid dripping down, and examined the color of the tea. Satisfied that it had steeped for just long enough, he set the leaf strainer aside in the kitchen sink.

“Would you like anything in it, sweetheart?” Steve called gently, loud enough to carry his voice but not so loud as to bother his sensitive Omega. “Milk?” He stopped to think about what might go well in hot ginger tea, and he smiled. “Or maybe something sweet—just like you?”

Bucky’s bashful chuckle was audible to Steve’s ears even from the next room over.

“Honey would be nice?” Bucky called back. “If we have it.”

Steve’s smile widened for only himself to see. If Bucky hadn’t realized by now that he’d made the arrangements before they even came up to the cabin for it to be stocked with anything and everything a body ailing from pre-Heat could possibly desire, Steve wasn’t sure that he ever would.

“Of course,” he answered, grabbing the jar of raw honey from the pantry and twisting it open. Steve scooped up a tiny bit of honeycomb with the spoonful of golden syrup and dropped it into the mug—a little sweet treat for Bucky to find once he’d sipped his way to the bottom. “Coming right up.”

Stirring the tea, Steve mused to himself that Bucky’s addition of choice was fitting. The light rumblings of a purr started up in his chest as he breathed in the hint of honeysuckle drifting throughout the cabin. The scent of it was still faint at this point, but its place among Bucky’s usual, earthy tones was steadily strengthening by the hour.

Six months had passed since Steve had last—and first—smelled honey-sweet blossoms in his mate’s scent. His blood coursed with warmth at the sure, certain knowledge of how different things would be this time around.

Steve cleaned his small mess and picked up the mug, heading towards the living room. He wore nothing but his own skin and a soft pair of boxer briefs, and he wore it all proudly; aside from Bucky, his only audience was the budding green sprigs of the last day of March peeping at him through the cabin’s wide windows. Even if Steve had wanted to don a shirt or pants—which he had no plans to do—Bucky would have pouted and pawed until he shed every piece. It had been enough of a battle for Steve to convince him to allow him underwear while boiling a hot kettle.

Bucky’s captivating scent grew stronger in Steve’s nose as he entered the living room. The coffee table that normally sat in front of the broad, L-shaped couch had been pushed off to the edge of the room, out of their way. Now, as Steve walked the pathway to his bundled-up lover, he was impeded only by a few small mountains of throw pillows—‘the spares,’ according to Bucky.

“Here you go, sweet boy,” Steve murmured, lowering himself onto the barely-visible cushions. He handed the mug over slowly and carefully, making sure Bucky’s hands could get a steady grasp on it without spilling the tea.

Bucky took the offering with a grateful smile and brought it to his lips for a sip. He let out a sweet, quiet sigh, eyelids fluttering as the warm liquid worked its way down his throat.

“Mm… Thank you Daddy.”

Steve would have shivered if his skin weren’t so damn hot; he didn’t think a day would come when hearing Bucky call him _that_ name failed to send electricity up his spine. He smiled fondly and petted Bucky’s already mussed-up hair, which was starting to grow slightly damp with sweat. An innate knowledge told Steve that today would be the last day of pre-Heat. Tomorrow would bring something different.

“How are you feeling?” Steve asked softly. He pressed a chaste kiss to Bucky’s warm forehead, scooting himself in closer but not penetrating the considerable barrier of blankets and sheets that his sweetheart was nestled inside. Safe.

Bucky breathed in the strong scent of ginger and took a gulp from his mug.

“I feel okay,” he answered, demure.

Steve studied his face, encouraged by the smooth state of Bucky’s brow and the new hint of a smile. He hummed and went back to petting his soft hair.

“Cramping?” he asked.

Bucky shook his head.

“No. Not anymore. I think the heating pad helped.”

“I’m glad. Still wish you had let me give you a bath, though. Or at least gave the hot tub a try.”

Bucky did a funny thing with his face at Steve’s suggestion, shaking his head again. He took another long drink before passing the mug back to Steve.

“Don’t wanna wash off the scent,” Bucky complained.

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Steve sighed and took the half-drunk tea as it was handed to him. “No more for now?”

“No, thank you. Maybe in a bit.”

Steve dipped off the cushions for a second to set the mug down on an end table. Bucky reached out for him as he returned, metal palm running along Steve’s side while his right hand pinched at the fabric of his waistband.

“Off?” Bucky asked, looking up at Steve with flushing cheeks and long eyelashes—and what kind of Daddy would Steve be to refuse?

Steve answered with a dramatic roll of his eyes.

“Alright,” he agreed, feigning a put-out look. “But are you gonna promise me that you’ll take a bath with me tonight? You know you’re gonna hate yourself later if you don’t do it now while you can. Gonna wanna do it even _less_ in a couple of days.”

“Yes, yes,” Bucky agreed quickly. He gave the boxers another insistent tug. “I promise. Off?”

Steve chuckled and stepped back for a second to work the garment down his legs.

“You got it, sweetheart.” Steve tossed the discarded fabric off to the far arm of the linen-crowded couch. “But I hope you don’t think you need Daddy again already. We gotta be careful with your body. Don’t wanna wear it out before this really even starts.”

Bucky shook his head, but he didn’t take his eyes off of Steve’s newly-revealed cock. It was mostly soft—for the time-being. He had yet to go _completely_ flaccid since that first note of honeysuckle had hit his nose just two days prior back in Brooklyn, but the buildup to Steve’s rut had turned out to be much more subtle than Bucky’s days of pre-Heat thus far.

“No,” Bucky answered. He looked up at Steve with gray, innocent eyes and licked his own lips. “Just… jus’ makes me feel better to be able to touch it.” Steve saw his cheeks pink up as he continued, mumbling, “‘S warm… an’ I likehow’tsmells.”

And then suddenly, Steve’s early rut signs didn’t feel so subtle at all. He didn’t try to smother the quiet growl that left his chest as his mind painted the scene Bucky’s admission implied: Steve’s Omega inviting him back into his nest and rubbing his face all over Steve’s skin, maybe starting with Steve’s neck or arm pits, working his way down until Bucky’s head was in Steve’s lap and his nose was in Steve’s groin and he was breathing in waves of his Alpha’s pheromones straight from their strongest source. Maybe Bucky would rest his head there for a nap once he was satisfied—once he reeked of _Steve_ —and then maybe Steve could soothe fingers through Bucky’s hair until he was ready to wake up, and then maybe Bucky would turn and nuzzle his sweet little face into Steve’s half-hard cock and maybe he would even—maybe Bucky might want to take the soft tip into his mouth and just _suckle_ , just try for a taste, not to blow Steve but to comfort himself and—

“Daddy?”

Bucky’s gentle voice yanked Steve from the whirlwind of sudden hindbrain thoughts. He looked down to find Bucky working open a break in his barricade of soft things, or at least trying to. Steve shook the smoky cobwebs from his head and leaned over to help.

“You want Daddy back in your nest, sweet boy?”

Bucky’s lips were wet and red from his own constant licking. He nodded his head.

“Yes, please.”

Steve gave a deep purr of approval—something he found himself doing a lot, as of late—and worked on finding the easiest way for him to climb inside that wouldn’t result in too much time needed for Bucky’s obsessessive repairing. The nest was mostly constructed of sheets and blankets that had come from Bucky’s nest back at home, but there was an assortment of their unwashed clothing scattered throughout. Steve set those pieces aside in a neat pile as he dug. That pile grew much larger than he first expected, and he had to chuckle.

“You liked your surprise, I see.”

Bucky shrugged sheepishly and blushed at the comment, but he didn’t say anything. Steve leaned forward to kiss the heat off his cheeks. As they had been packing to leave Brooklyn for Vermont, Steve had instructed Bucky to pick as many of their unlaundered things as he wanted to bring with them for his nest. It had been endearing to watch Bucky meticulously pick through their shared laundry baskets, smelling each t-shirt, each come-splattered pillowcase (that last one with a bone-deep flush), but as Steve had correctly predicted, Bucky imposed an arbitrary limit for the number of things he would let himself choose. Steve had been ready for that. Bucky hadn’t asked about the contents of the five extra-large duffle bags that Steve had tossed alongside their suitcases in the back of their borrowed SUV. In fact, Steve didn’t think Bucky even noticed the bags at all until Steve was bringing them into the cabin and unzipping each one, months of carefully-hoarded laundry items spilling forth onto the floor. _(“Steve! I—I’ve been_ looking _for that hoodie!”)_

Bucky’s muscles visibly relaxed when Steve finally wormed his way inside, closing up the major holes in the nest as best he could as he went. His patch-up job appeared to satisfy Bucky for at least the time being—or maybe it was just Bucky’s priorities shifting quickly as his Alpha suddenly became more accessible to him, one bare body pressing up on another.

“Mmm…” Bucky hummed, crawling into Steve’s lap and burying his face in the crook of his neck. He took one deep, drawn-out breath. “‘S better.”

Steve made a pleased rumbling sound in his chest and surrounded Bucky with his arms. It was one of many times in the past two days that he’d found himself curled up with Bucky in the growing nest—the last time having been only an hour prior, after Bucky had pleaded with wide, pretty eyes for Daddy to have him, for Steve to _‘be inside me, just for a while?’_ and _‘don’t need your knot yet, jus’ need to feel you,’_ and even, quite memorably, _‘maybe the tip, Daddy? Jus’ the very tip?’_ —but with only a few exceptions, Bucky mostly just wanted to use Steve as a human body pillow. Steve was more than happy to oblige him.

Except now, with his hazy, sleepy Omega snuggling up in his lap and not-so-subtly trying to coat his own wrists with the musk from Steve’s underarms, Steve couldn’t deny that the thick cloud of their combined pheromones was increasingly affecting him as well. It was different from what it did for Bucky; the mingling of their scents in such a concentrated space cast a spell over him that told him he was _safe_. And Bucky was safe. Steve was there to make damn sure of it.

But for Steve, the mixture of all those different elements gathered somewhere at the base of his skull and they made him feel _possessive_. While Steve wasn’t growing aroused, exactly, he was starting to become much more aware of his own body—and especially of Bucky’s body. Steve found himself bending his knees and widening his own legs, digging his heels into the floor of the nest, feeling like he needed more room for his heavy-but-patient balls to hang low and free. He shushed Bucky gently as he snuffled and shifted, slotting into the new space between Steve’s thighs easily, and it was—it was perfect. Even in the midst of adrenaline-soaked battles fought and won and lost as a soldier, Steve had never felt like quite this much of a… _physical_ being.

It felt important. It felt like purpose.

Bucky dozed, arms thrown in a loose, lazy loop around Steve’s neck. He hadn’t lied when he’d said that he just wanted to have his Alpha—his Daddy, both—with him for comfort right then. Steve gave him what he needed the best way he knew how to, running his hands up and down the soft skin of Bucky’s naked back. His mind wandered for a bit, going through a mental checklist of the food and hydration supplies he had ready for when the Heat finally arrived. At some point, Steve’s hands got away from him and wandered too low. Something sweet in Bucky’s scent pulsed.

Steve forced himself to push away his own groan only because he did not wish to wake his sleeping boy. He put some space between the pads of his fingers and Bucky’s lower back.

… But after a long while of contentedly holding Bucky, Steve found his hands drifting again. He let them this time. Even though his forgotten cock had definitely risen to half-mast when that fresh wave of golden flowers hit his nose, his touching wasn’t meant to be sexual. He was following some combination of desire and instinct, something inscribed deep in his DNA that told him he was holding a perfect but fragile being that needed Steve’s protection and needed Steve to care for him while his body was this sweet and private and vulnerable. This brave, angelic man needed Steve to be here while he rested, needed Steve to keep him safe while he built up energy for the demanding days ahead.

And asleep or awake, he needed Steve’s touch.

His hands wandered Bucky’s hips and his flawless bit of belly pudge. When they traveled backwards and down to the curvy swell of his bottom, Steve used one hand to hold his cheeks apart—gently, taking care not to wake him—while the other hand explored the delicate valley in the middle. Bucky was slick, of course, but not yet slick like Steve knew he would be tomorrow. There was an extra bit of wetness that Steve recognized to be his own come, though the majority of his earlier release had been deliberately rubbed into Bucky’s inner thighs, smeared on the skin to soak in before drying.

He expected the tiny sound that Bucky let out in his sleep when Steve lightly prodded his hole with one finger. It was both a sigh and a curious noise. Steve wished he’d had an extra hand to press a half-hold on the back of his neck—not a command, just a comfort, just the hint of a grip—but he’d have to do without it.

“Shh…” Steve whispered. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

An idea occurred to Steve. It would have scared him to think of it not so long ago, but in the warmth and security of their hideaway den and the sweet softness of Bucky’s nest, the rest of their lives in front of them, he found that he was no longer afraid. He closed his eyes and breathed in Bucky’s hair, focusing on the body in his arms, on his Omega. On his mate. A brief moment passed, and then Steve’s nose picked up a unique change in his own scent at the same time that Bucky sagged into him completely with a quiet, contented exhale.

Steve smiled to himself.

“Good boy.”

A relaxed and sleeping Bucky left Steve free to finish his task. He pressed gently against the outside of his slicked, heated hole and found Bucky open from before—perhaps a bit more than Steve would have expected him to still be on any other day. He traced a series of light circles with the calloused pad of his finger around the little dusky ring, assessing. The muscle felt pliant and soft under even this slightest pressure. Softer, even, than when Steve had last touched him.

It wouldn’t be long now.

Bucky slept for a long time. Steve managed to close his own eyes and join him at some point, pushing away the growing restlessness under his skin that was telling him to go out and forage and sweep for intruders and secure the premises. They weren’t in a cave; none of that was necessary. For now, Steve’s only job was to hold Bucky and dab the sweat from his forehead and make sure he was fed and hydrated and rested.

True to his word, Bucky did allow Steve to draw him into a warm bath after a late dinner that evening. Steve knew Bucky hated the idea of washing off the hard-earned layers of his own scent mixed with his Alpha’s, as necessary as it was for both of their comfort to bathe before the oncoming days—but Steve had stumbled on the foresight for a fix. Months ago, he had purchased a set of personalized bath products that he’d seen advertised online: _‘Send us your scent sample, and we send you back bubbles that smell just like your beau!’_. It felt admittedly odd for Steve to soak in tub with a bath bomb that smelled like an amplified version of himself, but it was worth every second for the fuzzy, relaxed look that graced Bucky’s face while Steve cradled and washed him.

Steve had always loved baths with Bucky. Aside from the inherent intimacy of the atmosphere, washing was also an essential part of Daddy’s aftercare routine following scenes with his boy, especially intense scenes. But if Steve was being honest, he had been looking forward to this particular bath for a long time. He’d fantasized about what it would be like to hold his Heat-scented Omega against his chest and soothe his itching skin with a soapy cloth, to get Bucky’s head lolling off to one side, pleasantly exposing the unmarred expanse of his neck to Steve’s view—just the way it was now. It was a truly beautiful sight. Steve couldn’t help but lean over to press his lips against the side of it, the same few inches of skin that he would soon find himself with an urge to bite down on, to draw lines of blood onto his tongue as Bucky writhed beneath him.

The thought of it did not frighten Steve. He smiled. He was Bucky’s Alpha because Bucky had chosen him, and because that’s what Steve was born to be. The two of them had discussed their plans extensively with each other, and with Drs. Welsh and Pete: how Bucky would like for his Heat to go, what Steve could expect from his rut, the different options they had to make the experience personal and unique for them as a couple ( _as if they needed help to be unique_ , Steve thought). Steve had learned about biting and how to do it right, how to correctly care for the wound and reopen it safely if he later felt that Alpha urge. He’d been overcome by pride when Dr. Welsh had praised them for their planning and their open discussion, when she’d said that their experience with scene negotiation had laid a strong foundation for them to prepare for their bonding.

They had decided together that Steve would take the reins as soon as pre-Heat hit, and Steve had done just that. Everything was already in place and ready to go by the time Bucky texted him to say that he wasn’t feeling well and that he was going to head home ( _“Stay where you are, Buck, I’m coming to you”_ ). They had also decided that it would be up to Steve to choose the best time and position to bite, and that he may not decide to do it on the first knot of the Heat. It was strange, especially considering his complicated history with rut, but Steve knew in his bones that he would choose the right moment when that moment came along. He knew in his soul that he would not fail to make this perfect for Bucky.

The edges of Steve’s teeth felt sharper in his mouth at just the thought of how ready they were for this. The warm steam fogging up the bathroom mirror had a sudden tinge of color to it that almost looked red.

“Daddy?” Bucky slurred, his sedate, quiet voice bringing Steve out of his reflections. “‘S okay?”

It was on the tip of Steve’s tongue to ask Bucky what he meant—and then he realized that he had been growling into the crook of his sweetheart’s neck as he internally reviewed their plans. He cut off the sound with a shake of his head.

“Sorry, sugar. Everything is fine. You’re perfect.” Steve dropped the cooling washcloth into the tub and encircled Bucky in his arms, pressing a kiss to his wet hair. “Do you want to use your shampoo, or do you want to have mine?”

Steve would be _Alpha_ tomorrow.

Tonight, Bucky needed his Daddy.

**bucky**

**—**

Bucky Barnes woke up to _growling._

_It wasn’t a threatening sound—not remotely—and it wasn’t even loud. It was a low, static thing that Bucky felt as much as he heard it, felt it against his skin, his—oh god, his_ skin _, his skin was sweaty and cold and it was made of_ fire _—_

_“‘Mega,” Steve rumbled._

_And then Bucky was on his stomach, face-down in his nest._

_“Yes… Alpha—”_

_His needy whimpers were cut short by a strong hand on his neck, pressing against the nape with precise, meticulous pressure and turning Bucky into liquid. He breathed out his relief._

_Bucky’s eyes slid shut. There was no reason to have them open when everything was dark, his face smothered in all of his soft things, a new moon crowning the night sky outside the windows of his Alpha’s den. His other senses would tell him what little he needed to know: the feeling of Steve’s chest plastered against his back, cock heavy on his thigh, the quiet sound of Steve’s grunting as he arranged Bucky and his limbs, and then the smell of burning cedar, of over-steeped tea, of pinecones and promise and the aroma of_ calm _. A thought occurred faintly in the back of his mind that it would be even better if he could curl his face into his favorite of Steve’s sweatshirts—that worn, old gray thing that smelled so thickly of his Alpha—but it was lost somewhere in the bundle of blankets. It was okay. Steve’s grip was enough._

_He had not felt a lick of air on his skin since waking up; Steve had moved and molded him without letting space seep between their bodies. Warm, thick fingers pressed into Bucky’s hole, and he heard himself purring, content and happy with the loving hand on his neck and knowledge that he was plenty slick already._

_He was good. His Alpha would be pleased._

_Time was funny, and then his fire-skin was better because Steve’s cock was inside him. The fit was perfect; snug. Steve took his hand from the back of Bucky’s neck and wrapped that arm around his chest, the long structure of his furred and muscled forearm like a bar over his clavicle, pressing Bucky back against Steve, keeping Bucky safe._

_Steve’s hips never left his ass. He ground his cock around inside his body for tender, torturous minutes, but he never once thrusted, never pulled out. He never really even fucked him. Steve only rutted the fat length of his cock in slow circles, growling continuously and wordlessly into Bucky’s ear. It was exactly what he needed._

_Bucky sighed when he came. The best part of his orgasm was the way his body opened for more, for Steve’s knot to press in and lock their flesh together. Steve’s jaw clamped down on his neck—not on his gland but on his scruff, and there was that warm, liquid pressure again, and there was Bucky melting._

_He settled into sleep._

_* * *_

_Bucky woke up on his back, thighs spread over a pair of broad shoulders._

_It was still dark outside the cabin windows. Steve’s tongue was in his ass._

_His Alpha’s mouth was demanding—wet and hot and thirsty. Bucky whined weakly at the onslaught. Instead of the sound provoking Steve into gripping for Bucky’s submission again, the high, reedy keening only served to spur Steve on._

_Bucky’s dick was hard. Leaking. Clearness pooled inside his navel._

_“_ Steve _—Alpha, I…”_

 _Steve groaned in agreement and took Bucky in hand. His fist engulfed his dick completely, but Steve didn’t jerk him, opting instead to run the pad of his thumb back and forth over the swollen head. Bucky could feel how wet he was, and the thought of it was pleasurable in and of itself; the floor of their nest must have been_ soaked _with the scent. He moaned out in bliss when the lewd sounds of slurping and gulping floated into his ears._

_His dick spurted onto his stomach the minute Steve started using teeth, scraping against the blood-hot, swollen rim. Bucky clenched down around the long and wet muscle that was doing its best to lick deeper into his hole._

_His eyes slipped shut again._

_* * *_

Bucky woke up to a soft whisper.

“Come on, angel,” his Alpha’s voice gentled. “Let me see those pretty eyes.”

Bucky obeyed. Steve’s face was hovering above him and the pale light of dawn was shining golden in his hair, in his beard. His Alpha was so beautiful.

“Need you to drink some water for me, Bucky. Will you do that?”

Bucky took in a deep breath through his nose. Steve’s scent had mellowed, smoldering instead of burning. The difference wasn’t much, but it was enough for Bucky to pick up on and know that Steve’s rut had calmed. He tried to remember when Steve had last knotted him. He thought maybe he’d awoken somewhere in the long, warm night resting atop his Alpha with that heavy weight inside him. Bucky couldn’t know for sure. He hoped that he’d been good.

“Buck?” Steve prodded. “Answer me. Answer Alpha,”—and then Steve had his attention.

“W—water?” Bucky repeated. “I can… yes. Yes, please.”

The rumble of approval Bucky’s answer earned was like a shot of morphine down his spine. Steve sat Bucky up with an arm slid beneath him, and then a small bottle of cold water appeared at his lips. Bucky wasn’t very good with getting it all in his mouth, but that was okay, because the coolness dripping down his chin felt good against the heat inside his skin. It took some time and plenty of help, but he eventually drained the bottle.

“Good,” Steve smiled. “That’s perfect, sweetheart.”

Steve held him and kissed him for a while, running the insides of his wrists over Bucky’s arms. He wondered if the scent-marking was for Bucky or for himself, and then he decided that it didn’t matter. It was something Bucky got to have either way. Steve produced a bag of almonds and dried fruits and even little marshmallows from somewhere, and he fed them to Bucky by hand, slipping each piece between his lips until Bucky began to push his hand away.

Steve asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom. Bucky blinked, checking in with his body and finding a full bladder. He nodded. Steve helped him to the powder room and stood outside the door while Bucky relieved himself—enough distance to allow privacy, but still close enough that he could be through the door in an instant if Bucky were to call for him.

He carried Bucky back to the living room afterwards, secure in a pair of strong arms. Bucky was set down just short of the couch so Steve could quickly rebuild the collapsed parts of the nest. He took his opportunity, with a refreshed body and halfway clear brain, to look around the room for the first time since his pre-Heat had begun in earnest. There were baskets of unwashed clothing and pillow piles everywhere—a good stash, Bucky thought, should he find he needed more. The large windows were partially covered to allow in _some_ light, while not overwhelming Bucky’s sensitive eyes. He noted the small cooler that Steve had positioned just next to the couch.

And then Bucky’s gaze strayed to the far side of the room, and that’s when he spotted that missing gray sweatshirt—Steve’s sweatshirt, _his_ sweatshirt _,_ the _thing Bucky needed—_ and every one of his survival instincts flew out the carefully draped windows.

Bucky ran.

Bucky _tried to run._

_He wasn’t halfway across before his body was jolted with the force of being snatched in the grip of a beast—an_ enhanced _beast. His feet were ripped clear off the floor. Bucky braced himself for pain, for impact, but then he was landing face-up with his back against Steve’s chest and Steve’s punched-out breath on his neck._

 ** _“No,”_** _his Alpha peeled out of his chest, so much gravel in his voice that it might have been raw or bleeding._ **“Mine.”**

_Bucky offered no protest; his muscles and mind went lax. He expected Steve to use his grip or his calm scent, but he didn’t, or maybe he just didn’t need to. His Omega had no plans or desire to resist him._

“Mine,” _Steve repeated._

 _And then Bucky was being flipped over and pressed face-first into the living room rug, and Steve was gripping his hips and yanking them up and Bucky knew Steve wanted him presenting… or Bucky_ thought _Steve wanted him presenting, but then Steve changed his mind with a feral-sounding snarl and pulled Bucky up by his armpits. He lifted his weight and moved him forward until Bucky was kneeling on the carpet, top half bent over something solid—a coffee table he hadn’t even known was there._

_Everything after that went by in a weightless, easy blur. Steve pressed his fingers inside him for all of three seconds, testing the ease of their spread, before pulling them out and shoving his cock in with one hot-wet-long slide. Bucky didn’t have to do anything; he was caged between his Alpha and a piece of furniture that felt increasingly fragile. His only job was to cling to the table and hope that both he and it survived the ride that Bucky had so willingly signed them onto._

_It was the fastest, roughest fuck of his life, and there wasn’t a close second. And it was_ wet _. Bucky was making so much slick that it splashed against his spine each time Steve’s hips slapped against his with a_ smack _and sent drops of it flying. None of their noises were even remotely intelligible. Bucky’s knees would have gone red and raw with rug burn if not for the fact that his knees were hardly on the rug. Steve held up his weight with punishing hands that would leave fingertip bruises spanning his hips for_ days _._

 _“Breed you,” Steve growled against the shell of his ear, damp and almost slobbery, gorgeous like the sun. “Have you. Mine._ Mine _.”_

 _When they came, it was sloppy and uncoordinated and not without pain for either of them. Bucky had never had an orgasm that was so well and truly_ fucked _out of him, his dick untouched and forgotten, but the clench of his muscles came with violently rude timing. Steve’s knot was on the edge of popping in earnest when it happened. They were caught at an impasse, Bucky’s ass already clamped down on Steve’s cock too tightly to let his knot in—but that didn’t stop Steve, that_ couldn’t _stop Steve, not when he had such a vital imperative to chase. Bucky was just as distraught. He tried to slam himself backwards but Steve wouldn’t have it, wouldn’t allow Bucky to thrash and push and hurt himself. If someone had to hurt Bucky, it was damn well going to be his Alpha._

_And then Steve’s teeth clamped onto his neck for the second time that day, and Bucky collapsed forward, his body loose and pliable. Welcoming._

_He barely came to later, even when the knot inside him was jostled as he was carried to his nest. Steve settled them in on their sides, spooning, back-to-front. Bucky’s eyes had just begun to flutter shut when Steve made a huffing, half-grunt sound—not an_ “I’m sorry,” _but rather,_ “I hope you learned your lesson.”

 _He made a relaxed, snuffling noise in reply that he hoped said it all:_ “Thank you, Alpha. I did.”

_The last thing Bucky was aware of before sleep took him again was the thick scent of an old, gray sweatshirt being tucked under his head._

_* * *_

_“Wh—what time ‘sit?”_

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. Here, you need to drink more water.”

_“It’s, I don’t—can’t we—”_

“No.”

 _“‘lpha… I_ —Daddy...”

“ _No_ , Bucky. You need a break after you ran and did all of that to yourself.”

“Feel ‘mpty, it _hurts_.”

“Then you’ll do what I say and you’ll drink this water, and then you can have Daddy’s fingers.”

“But—”

“Stop it, no. Do _not_ make Daddy use his calm. You’ve had too much already.”

“I—Okay. Um. But can we…”

“… Can we what, sugar?”

“Can I, um. M-may I have some of my water, please, and then—then fingers, an’ then I can—we could…”

“Go ‘head, use your words. You can ask for anything that isn’t a knot.”

“Okay, um. And… an’ then—then after we have those—may I s-sit on Daddy’s f-face?”

“ _Fuck_.”

“... Alpha? Daddy, are you… am _I_ oka—”.

“Sweet boy _,_ Jesus _fuck_ —Fuck. _Christ_. Of course you can do that… C’mere.”

* * *

_Bucky woke up with—but, wait,_ how… Had Steve…?

 _“Sleep,”_ his Alpha growled, pressing on the base.

Bucky sighed, content. He leaned into Steve’s heat and the possessive wrap of a thick, strong arm.

‘Sleep’ is just what Bucky did.

* * *

Bucky woke up to a west-facing window and every color inside of the sunset.

His eyes opened on the edge of a hazy Heat dream; not quite _under_ the surface, but not quite above it. He wasn’t sure which way he was going to tip at first—whether he would soon be breathing air or the mist of lavender clouds—until a rumbling sound behind him rolled into his ears and dripped warm honey over his mind.

Bucky had awoken first this time, but Steve wasn’t far behind. He had just enough time before the Heat would come for him to appreciate the view outside the wide window.

The equinox sun was still in the sky, but it was slowly falling, caught between the cirrus clouds and towering silhouettes of mountains. Its rays of light came in luminant beams of orange, of dazzling pinks and brights, refracting away from the atmosphere and scattering over the tree line. The colors on the horizon fell in layers; they changed by the minute, curving along with the arc of an entire planet right in front of Bucky’s eyes. And then there was the growing ring of _red_ at the very outer edge—the last color in the sky to ever touch the Earth, and the only color inside a beating human heart.

His Alpha’s rumbling grew louder; a purr turning into a quiet growl. He smelled like branches and incense and the edges of a pinecone that someone had singed with fire. His warm, broad palm ran down Bucky’s ribs, along his stomach, across his sensitive chest. Steve was feeling Bucky’s skin as much as he was checking on it—for bumps, for abrasions, for anything he might have missed. He found nothing but the five tender circles purpling each of Bucky’s hips.

Steve checked Bucky’s pulsing entrance last, pulling out the breeding plug he had pushed inside earlier. A viscous rush of slick and come and spilled out of him. Steve’s lungs let out a sound of primal satisfaction.

_“Omega…”_

Bucky welcomed the haze _._

_Steve handled him slower this time. Perhaps it was to preserve energy—his or Steve’s, he didn’t know—or perhaps it was something else altogether. Either way, Bucky didn’t concern himself with it. Knowing ‘why’ was not his job._

_He took Bucky on his back. It was the first time Steve had done so while Bucky was in Heat, and it was different, somehow; closer. Bucky felt privileged to be able to look up and see a sunset touching his Alpha’s cheek at the same time that he had his Alpha inside him, rocking into him, hard but slow and steady and firm. Bucky’s dick bounced between them, plumped up, looking so small in this light. He paid it no mind._

_Steve slowed and pressed their bodies together, laying his forehead atop Bucky’s shoulder, breathing. Quieting. Bucky whined at first, and he tried to move his own hips, circling around the heavy length filling him up. Steve gave him a warning growl to still him. Bucky stilled. He took deep breaths to calm himself—and realized Steve was doing the same._

_“Alpha?” Bucky whimpered, a question. He squeezed his legs around Steve’s hips in a silent gesture of comfort._

_Steve responded with a renewed rumbling—lower this time, and louder, too. He lifted his head and leaned up on his forearms, gargantuan and_ man _, and then his hips began moving again with deep, hard thrusts that pushed the air up through Bucky’s throat. It was perfect. It was exactly what he wanted._

_Bucky let his eyes slide shut when Steve nuzzled at his jaw, growling still, inhaling. Memorizing a moment. He made Bucky come twice as the dying rays of sunlight became orange, and then pink, and then slowly seeped to red. He touched Bucky with strong hands and kissed Bucky on his mouth, demanding and sometimes ferocious, but never more than he needed._

_Except Bucky needed more._

_Steve’s knot had grown fat and swollen as it rocked against his hole, not seeking entrance, not yet, but vowing. He took one of Bucky’s hands in his and placed it on the side of his face, palm open against his beard, right over the hinge of Steve’s jaw. He pressed it hard into that spot and grunted quietly as though to say,_ ‘keep this here.’ _Bucky nodded—and then Bucky knew._

_He knew this was it._

_Time seemed to slow even when the movement of Steve’s hips did not. Steve looked down at him with their faces less than an inch apart, but he said nothing. He didn’t ask Bucky if he was sure. He didn’t breathe out a whisper of Bucky’s name. What he did was peer so deep into Bucky’s eyes that Bucky felt it in his lungs._

_“Alpha,” Bucky gasped, the only word he knew even when he had evolved to inhale cerulean like it was easier to breathe than air. “Please.”_

_Steve’s growling came to a thunderous crescendo—a_ roar _. Bucky held on to the side of Steve’s face just like he’d been ordered as Steve finally broke their gaze._

_He turned Bucky’s head west, and he dipped his own down._

_Bucky felt the bite beneath his hand before he felt it in his neck. Steve’s animal jaw widened, pulling taut like a bow as the tendons stretched and shifted under the coarseness of his beard, palpable against the heated skin of Bucky’s palm. And then there was pressure, and then there was the pain, and then there was Bucky spinning bright inside his body until it wasn’t his body at all._

_It wasn’t like the movies or the romance novels._

_It was better. It was his._

_Bucky had heard it would be like falling—if falling could feel good. He’d heard it would be like getting the warmest hug of his life. He’d heard it would be like poetry becoming real inside his chest, or like prose lighting up like stars in his mind. He’d heard it would be the greatest moment of his life._

_But for Bucky, it was none of those._

_It wasn’t poetry. It wasn’t prose. It wasn’t a moment that belonged to his life at all—because it was the first moment of_ their _life._

_For Bucky, it was like having his eyes open as the sunset kissed the mountain. It was like laying in a cloud of his lover’s smoky scent while blood bloomed bright from the side of his neck. It was like being in the arms of someone who knew his skin and heart and soul better than he knew his own. It was like biting down on his mate’s flesh and tasting copper on his tongue._

_And then—and then it was like white._

_A seashore. A beach, peaceful dunes laid pale before an ocean full of soul. They moved together—he and Steve—dancing amongst the ocean’s dust and ancient symbols drawn in the sand. Each wave that crashed ashore was a memory; moments in time, moving and breaking, cleansing their bare feet._

_It was like being at the beginning, and feeling the heat of a tongue on his neck._

_And it was as natural as falling asleep._

**steve**

**—**

Bucky woke up.

Steve felt it.

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again.
> 
> As of the time of this A/N (Dec. 2020), I am definitely taking questions/comments/head canon requests about this couple and their story on my tumblr ([@the1918](https://the1918.tumblr.com)). You know where to find me if you need me ; )

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my [entire team of betas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21754051/chapters/51901234)—and an _extra_ special thanks to support from my tumblr family and three people in particular that powered this fic and kept me writing: [@cantabile-l](https://cantabile-l.tumblr.com/%22) (who is the primary one at fault for ninety-nine percent of the tropey things in this epilogue, and who literally invented new Omegaverse tropes), [@ywecanthavenicethings](https://ywecanthavenicethingsanymore.tumblr.com/), and [@LullabyBeauty](https://lullabybeauty.tumblr.com/). And, finally, thank you to everyone who has read, commented, bookmarked, left kudos, and even just lurked. This story literally would not have happened without you.
> 
>   
> I'm on Tumblr <3 [@the1918](https://the1918.tumblr.com), where I have a lot of minor works not posted on ao3! Also... if you _really_ wanted to, say, share a Compatible series masterlist post on tumblr, I’m sure you could probably find one [here](https://the1918.tumblr.com/post/637051916035276800/by-the1918-master-post-complete-a%E2%80%9D%20rel=) 😜


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